Introducing The Next Generation Of Energy Efficient Bulbs

Traditional incandescent light bulbs, which includes halogen bulbs, turn barely more than ten percent of their electricity input into visible light. They function by heating a metal filament to almost melting point and most of the input energy is, as you might expect, lost in the form of heat. It would therefore be understating things somewhat to describe them as not exactly efficient at doing the very thing they are supposed to do

As a little heater the average regular light bulb is not bad, but unfortunately this heat is generally lost someplace useless like the ceiling and if you're actually trying to keep the temperature down then all they do is make your air conditioning work harder. Whichever way you cut it, you are paying good money for heat you almost certainly don't want and getting a lousy deal on light.

Energy saving or "low energy" light bulbs that are significantly more efficient have been available for quite a while now. These typically take the form of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and are currently the most commonly available type of energy saving bulb for the domestic market. CFLs have not really caught on though, most probably because they're oversized, take a noticeable amount of time to reach full brightness and are expensive by comparison with incandescent bulbs. Despite some improvements to make CFLs smaller, attain full brightness in less time, and reduce the price but there is no hiding the fact that they have a poor image, which is not helped by the fact that they also contain toxic mercury vapour and are thus not easy to dispose of in an environmentally friendly way.

The next breed of energy saving light bulbs are based on light emitting diodes (LED). These are massively more energy saving than current CFLs but until very recently have not been sufficiently bright enough for general home lighting.

However LED bulbs are now viable as genuine alternatives, especially the ones designed to replace GU10 or MR16 halogen lamps. If you are considering going down this route then you should also be aware that many white LED bulbs (particularly those labelled "cool" as opposed to "warm" white) can have a slightly bluish tinge, which some people find fairly attractive but which can stick out rather if mixed with other types of lighting.

There is no doubt though that far and away the principle advantage of LED lights is that they convert nearly all their input electricity into light and waste almost none as heat which quite simply means that they require a great deal less electricity in operation. Approximately ten times less, which represents a massive saving in expenditure because the cost of electric lighting is almost totally due to the operating cost. The cost of the actual light bulbs is really quite trivial by comparison.

LED lights also last about twenty times longer so need replacing far less frequently. The benefits are plain then; not only does LED lighting save you the consumer financially, they also help the environment. The manufacturing process is simpler than for CFL and there are no nasty disposal issues.

The principle environmental benefit is of course related to the fact that they consume much less energy and therefore considerably less electricity has to be produced which also means lower CO2 emissions. A win-win situation really.

As should be clear from this article it's difficult to see what's not to llke about LED halogen replacement; to discover more read this article about 12v LED lights.