WHY LEDS OVER OTHER LIGHTING SOLUTIONS?
Before showing you why LEDs are best, first let’s know a little about various lighting solutions available in the market and how do they function.
1. Incandescent bulb:
An incandescent bulb is an electric bulb with filaments made up of tungsten in it. The whole filament wire setup is covered by a glass bulb to prevent oxidation. Bulb socket provides mechanical and electrical connections and the current is supplied to filament by terminals embedded in glass. Electricity heats the filament wire until it glows.
2. Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL):
A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor coating on the inside of the lamp to glow. A fluorescent lamp tube is filled with a mix of argon, xenon, neon, or krypton, and mercury vapor.
3. Light Emitting Diode (LED):
A light emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor light source that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor, that recombine with electron holes, release energy in the form of photons(light).
Now we know about what an LED, CFL & Incandescent light is. So, let's go deeper on their efficiency, power usage, output given and cost efficiency.
Lumen & Wattage comparison
Lumens is the measurement of brightness emitted by a light as perceived to the human eye. A watt is a unit of electrical power used in the measurement of energy consumption.
The below chart illustrates the comparison between LED, CFL & incandescent in terms of lumens produced at different wattages.
Incase of eurth led. the figures are as follows:
Cost Effective
Well, to understand this let’s take an example. A standard 60W incandescent bulb can produce up to 800 lumens. And an average LED can last up to 25,000 operating hours. Let’s calculate how much one has to spend to produce 800 lumens of light for 25,000 hours using different lighting solutions like CFL, LED and Incandescent. Let’s assume that he runs the light 6 hours a day. So, lets calculate how much he needs to spend on different lighting solutions for 1 years (2200 operating hours).
For Domestic Use:
To produce 800 lumens for 6 hours a day through out a year, Total operating cost of an INCANDESCENT is 852 INR. For CFL, TOC (total operating cost) is 326 INR and For LED is 186 INR.
For Industrial Use:
To produce 1100 lumens for 12 hours a day through out a year, Total operating cost of an INCANDESCENT is 2094 INR. For CFL, TOC (total operating cost) is 692 INR and for LED is 354 INR.
Long Lasting
I think by this time you would have already known about this. If you don’t know, let's see the chart below.
LEDs have enormously longer life spans compared to both CFLs & Incandescent.
Heat & Co2 emissions:
● LEDs emits 90% less heat when compared to Incandescent lights and around 20% less heat when compared to CFLs.
● LEDs emits 82% less co2 when compared to Incandescent and about 50% less co2 when compared to CFLs.
By comparing LEDs, CFLs & Incandescent, LEDs have noticeably very low heat & co2 emissions which is a major advantage with them.
Safety and Ecological:
Unlike in CFLs, LEDs don't require any mercury to function. Absence of mercury makes LEDs safer to use and easy to handle at the end of their life span than CFLs and also makes them more ecological.
By this, we came to an end of this comparison. And, you know what? LED wins in almost every comparison over CFL and Incandescent. LEDs are more long lasting, power efficient, easy to handle, more ecological and more reliable.