LED Light Bulb Basics

LED Light BulbBasics

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Our traditional incandescent light bulb, which loses most of its energy as heat, is primarily being replaced these days with the higher-efficiency compact fluorescent, or CFL. The CFL, though, has its own problems, primarily the inclusion of toxic mercury in the design and a strange, sometimes unpleasant color that even gives some people headaches.

LED light bulb (Light-Emitting Diode)

LEDs have been around for many years -- they light up digital clocks, Christmas lights, flashlights and traffic signals, and they tell you when you've got a new voicemail message on your cell phone.

Certain drawbacks have kept companies from manufacturing them in standard, replacement-size light bulb form, so they haven't taken off as quickly for household lighting.

Let's cover LED light bulb basics.

An LED is what's called a "solid-state lighting" technology, or SSL. Basically, instead of emitting light from a vacuum (as in an incandescent bulb) or a gas (as in a CFL), an SSL emits light from a piece of solid matter.

In the case of a traditional LED, that piece of matter is a semiconductor.

An LED produces light when electrons move around within its semiconductor structure.

A semiconductor is made of a positively charged and a negatively charged component.

The positive layer has "holes" -- openings for electrons; the negative layer has free electrons floating around in it.

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In the past as LED technology was evolving, the structure of an LED caused some of that light to get trapped inside.

So an LED bulb has traditionally been dimmer than an incandescent bulb.

However, now LEDs are getting brighter. You can find LED replacement bulbs that emit light equivalent to a 60-watt incandescent light bulb.

An LED replacement light bulb emits 60-watt equivalent light using 7.5 watts of power.

The LED method of producing light loses far less energy to heat than do other lighting technologies.

It's dramatically more efficient than the vacuum/filament method used in incandescent bulbs -- up to 85% more efficient.

A single light fixture stocked with a 60-watt incandescent bulb consumes about 525 kWh of electricity in a year; put an LED bulb in that light fixture, and the annual energy use is more like 65 kWh.

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The annual CO2 reduction is in the hundreds of pounds for a single lamp.

You could go 20 years without having to change an LED light bulb!

A typical incandescent bulb lasts about 750 hours; an LED bulb lasts 30,000 hours.

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The lighting industry in general expects LED costs to come down quickly.

Lighting Science Group, a company that develops and manufactures LED lighting, estimates a 50 percent price reduction within two years.

Breakthroughs are popping up at a breakneck pace.

For more information about LED light bulbs and related topics, visit our website at

http://www.reelcaribbeanenergy.com and follow us on Facebook.