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LED The New Green Lighting

The latest technology in lighting is the LED (Light Emitting Diode) such as we see in the newer automotive taillights, traffic signals and flashlights. These new lighting applications came about due to advances in the ability of the LED to produce white light, along with very high brightness. Additionally, RGB (red, green , blue) LEDs can also produce the complete color spectrum allowing the light source to change color on demand.

Current LED light bulbs typically use many individual LED devices inside the bulb housing which tends to keep the cost higher than CFL in the initial purchase, but the operating life is typically 50,000 hrs. and dimmable. They do not contain mercury, lead or other material that would be considered harmful to humans making breakage and disposal non-issues.

The LED bulbs are designed to directly replace existing incandescent bulbs, tube fluorescents and CFLs which means than they can be installed without any additional costs. This is especially important in large facilities wishing to covert to a green posture while reducing energy cost 20% further and eliminating disposable and mercury liabilities.

The lighting industry expects conversion to LED lighting to be in full swing starting in 2008 and a majority of the conversion completed by 2014.