One of the increasingly important applications of Light Emitting Diodes or LED´s today is their use in street lighting. This is particularly evident in the U.S. where a lot of cities and communities are changing their street lights from incandescent lighting to LED lighting. A visit to the website of the United States Department of Energy will reveal the reports of several completed and ongoing projects featuring LED street lighting. This trend in street lighting, also found in several other cities in the world, and can be traced to several reasons.
Better Night Visibility
LED Street Lighting provides improved visibility at night. With this improvement in night visibility, driving at night with LED lighting is undoubtedly safer than driving under the traditional incandescent lighting. A number of reasons contribute to the better visibility provided by LED street lights including a more uniform illumination of the area, an improvement in the color display or rendition, and also, a higher color temperature. These factors make LED street lamps a better option.
Considerably Longer Lifespan
This is another plus for the use of LED lamps in street lighting. According to the United States Department of Energy, the typical lifespan of LED lamp ranges from 25,000 to 100,000 hours. In fact a lot of the LED lights manufactured as far back as the 1970s are still functioning today. This is a testimony to the better lifespan of LED street lighting. This is because these devices undergo very limited wear and tear unlike the other street lighting options such as incandescent lighting and CFL (compact fluorescent).
Lower Energy Consumption
This is the primary benefit or advantage of LED lighting including LED street lights. In fact this is the reason why a lot of cities are going on LED street lighting drives. A typical LED street lamp consumes much less energy than the typical incandescent street lamp or a CFL with a higher luminance and of course, also lasts longer. What this translates to is a better energy efficiency which supports the trend in which the world is moving towards now.
Absence of Environmental Hazards
In this department, LED street lighting truly transcends every other option available for street lighting. This is because LED´s do not discharge the typical disposable hazards such as lead and mercury into the environment. Another aspect of the environmental impact of LED´s is their carbon footprints. A 13watt LED lamp will emit about 63lbs of CO2 while an incandescent lamp will emit about 196lbs annually over the same period of usage.
LED Street Lighting is the Way to Go
With all the points listed above it is clear that in order to have environmentally friendly, highly efficient and cost effective street lighting, there is actually no better option available at the moment than LED street lights. City administrators have realized this and very soon the streets of America will be lit all over by LED lights; and of course, the whole world will follow suit.
|
|