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Professor Matthew Phillips, from the Department of Physics and Advanced Materials at UTS, explains the advantages of solid state lighting, an efficient and revolutionary form of technology. | | The technology of using filaments in light bulbs is slowly being replaced by more energy efficient light sources, and most excitingly, by solid state lighting devices such as Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs).The old incandescent light bulbs wasted more than 95% of the electrical energy used by creating heat as well as light. LEDS are sourced from man made materials and are expensive to manufacture. However, their cost is rapidly dropping as the market increases and the technology gets better.
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The lumen is the unit used for measuring the amount of light produced and the efficiency of a light source is measured by lumens per watt. An incandescent bulb costs about 50 cents per lumen, whereas a compact fluorescent bulb costs about $2 per lumen and a solid state light is around $100 per lumen. |
| This might seem a large disparity until the length of usage is taken into account.
An incandescent bulb will last for some 1000 hours whereas a solid state one lasts for 100,000 hours. In addition, a LED only requires one tenth the power to produced the same light output as an incandescent bulb.
Traffic lights, for instance, now use LEDs because the devices pay for themselves in one year, and will continue to function maintenance free for ten years.
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The City of Sydney is currently having a trial use of LED street lights at Martin Place and Circular Quay. Sydney’s street lights cost the city $3.5 million dollars in electricity annually and some $5 million in maintenance annually and replacing them with LED lighting will cut costs by 50%, as well as saving 1,300 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. | | In Australia Incandescent bulbs are no longer available as they have been banned, and 140 million bulbs will be phased out of the next few years. Just replacing those bulbs means electricity savings of 30 terawatts.hr, monetary savings of $4,500 million, and eliminating 28 million tonnes of carbon dioxide - equivalent to closing one coal-fired power station or taking 500,000 cars off the road. Incandescent bulbs have or are being banned in many countries, since lighting uses 20% of global power and savings can be made both short and long term, and cuts in greenhouse gases.
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Solid state lighting is also well matched to alternative energy sources, since they require far less (about one tenth) the power to operate. In fact, Professor Phillips believes that in the not so distant future, all domestic power could be taken off the grid. |
| This will be possible with the new energy efficient batteries that would store the power from solar panels during the day and then using that stored power to run all domestic lights.
This battery/solar power/LED lighting is already in familiar use. For example, every most road sign advertising the 40 kph speed outside schools uses a combination of solar power, modern battery technology and LED.
China is playing a large role in the development of this technology and its implementation, promising significant savings to their economy.
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The US Department of Energy has set a target of 200 lumens per watt efficiency by 2020, with one US company already announcing they have reached that target, ten years ahead of time. | All the established lighting companies (Osram, Phillips, GE) are interested in solid state lighting and all have large LED programs. Moreover a number of new semiconductor lighting companies are rapidly growing in Asia.
Another advantage of LED lights is that they are safe, completely recyclable and contain no harmful substances, unlike fluorescent bulbs and tubes which contain mercury. They also do not suddenly fail but fade slowly over time, which is why car brake lights are now made with LEDs.
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Replacements for existing halogen down lights can be bought off the internet for less than A$10. These will last for around ten years and draw a fraction of the electricity. A number of Australia companies also offer LED lights, along with calculators on their websites so customers can work out the savings to be made.
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| While the LED lighting is initially expensive, its high efficiency and long life far exceeds that of the compact fluorescents promoted by the Government and a government funded rebate scheme to install LEDs would make good sense, especially since electricity prices are set to increase dramatically.
In all ways a LED is a bright light on the horizon.
All images from Matthew Phillips
Text: V.B. September 2010
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