How efficient is LED lighting?

If you read our previous piece on the reasons to switch to LED (Light Emitting Diode) light bulbs for your business premises or domestic property, you will have come to realise that there are plenty of them, ranging from their gentle effect on the environment and the protection that they provide for your skin, right through to their complete silence and the almost impossibility of breaking them.

However, there’s no question that many people purchase LED light bulbs on account of their supposed efficiency compared to alternatives like traditional incandescent bulbs or Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs). So how efficient is LED lighting, exactly?

Led light bulbs could bring drastic efficiency improvements

It’s understandable that you may still be deterred by the high upfront cost of LED bulbs if you are still using traditional incandescent bulbs. After all, the brightest LEDs for the home can still cost as much as £20, although most LED bulbs are priced less than £10 these days and the cost is dropping continually.

Furthermore, there’s increasingly little reason to even consider any alternatives to LED bulbs when you bear in mind the immense difference they can make to your bills over their lifetime – which could be between 25 and 30 years for each bulb. According to Which, LEDs use 90% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, whereas CFLs only use between 60% and 80% less, and halogens save a mere 20% to 30% of energy by the same measure.

With lighting accounting for 20% of all of the UK’s energy consumption and up to 40% of a building’s electricity bill, it’s clear that those savings over an entire year could be sizable indeed. To verify just how much that could be, try out our LED Lighting Calculator. Assuming that you have industrial premises or a warehouse to illuminate with 10 100-watt bulbs for 10 hours a day, combined with the Energy Savings Trust’s calculation that the UK national average price per kWh for electricity is 14.05p, you could be looking at a drop in running costs per year from £608.64 to £426.05.

What makes led lighting so efficient?

Whereas ordinary incandescent bulbs emit light as a current is passed through the metal within them, LEDs work on the basis of the passage of electrons through a semiconductor. This means there’s no filament to wear out in LEDs, which also explains their coolness compared to traditional incandescent bulbs. Both incandescent bulbs and halogens produce light as a by-product when they get hot, which is simply not as efficient a way of producing light as LEDs can offer.

But it’s not just a case of choosing the right lights

Of course, the exact lighting that you use is far from the only factor in determining how much energy and therefore, money you can save in your home or commercial premises. If you wish to gain the greatest value from your investment in lighting, it’s still important to follow a series of other, largely common-sense practices, including always turning off your lights when you leave a room, using a sensor and timer on external lights to ensure they are only on when they need to be, and being conscious of how many and which lights you have on at any one time.

Purchase your next order of leds from inui

With LED lighting now being increasingly used for a vast range of applications also including interactive signage, advertising hoardings and the decorative illumination of buildings – all of which make the most of the fact that it can be specified in an assortment of colours – there’s never been a better time to switch from traditional incandescent or CFL lighting to LED bulbs.

Although LED light bulbs offer a wealth of advantages, investment in them also makes plenty of sense if you are purchasing on the grounds of their energy efficiency alone. Turn to INUI, and we’ll help to source the perfect LED lighting options for your own intended application.