Energy Efficient Lighting
What is a good energy efficient lighting choice?
With rising energy costs energy conservation is an issue that is starting to be front-of-mind for many people these days.
The good news is that typically less energy is used with outdoor lighting than indoors, because the light you need in a garden is not the same as you need inside your home. For example, you don’t need light at the same brightness you do for reading.
Also the lights used outdoors are usually low voltage and energy efficient (many use just 20 watts). In addition, the hours of outdoor lighting operation are typically limited to around a few hours each night. It helps cost-wise that the power is drawn during off-peak hours.
On the other hand, in situations where the outdoor lighting is not needed for safety reasons (lighting paths for example), the argument is that the power used is wasted.
For this reason, solar lights are becoming more popular - they are often cheaper to install also, because you don’t need to wire them up. One limitation with solar lights todate has been their limited brightness.
However, the arrival of LED lights changed the situation, because LEDs are much brighter at lower power levels than traditional incandescent lights.
Prediction: The future of outdoor lights will definitely belomg to LEDs (light emitting diode) and be solar powered.
LEDs come in a variety of colors and they are extremely durable and energy efficient. LEDs are today not as bright and are still more expensive than incandescent light bulbs, but looking to the future LEDs will become commonplace.
