Let’s shed some light on light­ing effi­cien­cy.  Basi­cal­ly, light bulbs come in three types.  They are halo­gen incan­des­cents, com­pact flu­o­res­cent lamps (CFLs) and light-emit­ting diodes (LEDs).  They each have their own pros and cons so let’s take a look at what those are.

There are many ways to be more ener­gy effi­cient at home or in your busi­ness.  One of the eas­i­est ways is to make changes to your light­ing.  Switch­ing over to ener­gy-effi­cient bulbs can reduce our eco-foot­print and save you money.

Ener­gy effi­cien­cy of a light bulb is mea­sured by how much ener­gy it requires com­pared to how much ener­gy is required by a tra­di­tion­al incan­des­cent bulb to pro­duce the same amount of light.

To pro­duce the same amount of light as a 60-watt incan­des­cent, each bulb would require approx­i­mate­ly the fol­low­ing amounts of energy:

Halo­gen incan­des­cent comes in at 42 watts

CFL comes in at 15 watts

LED comes in at 12 watts

So In per­cent­ages, a halo­gen bulb will use about 25% less ener­gy, a CFL about 75% less, and an LED about 80% less. CFLs and LEDs are the big winners.

Now let’s talk about how long a bulb will last.  Let’s assume a bulb is on 3 hours a day.  At that rate an incan­des­cent bulb would last a year or two before it will dim or go out.  A halo­gen incan­des­cent will last about the same amount of time.  CFLs are much bet­ter and should last about 9 or 10 years.  LEDs are esti­mat­ed to last 25+ years. WOW!

As there are dif­fer­ences in lifes­pan, there are dif­fer­ences in bright­ness and cost.

Bright­ness used to be mea­sured in watts.  The more watts, the brighter the bulb.  We now have bulbs pro­duc­ing the same amount of light with far less watts so a new met­ric is now used, lumens.  Each type of light is capa­ble of pro­duc­ing any lev­el of bright­ness from a com­mon house­hold set­ting (500 lumens) to a strong back­yard light­ing (1000+ lumens).  There is no win­ner when it comes to bright­ness.  The dif­fer­ence is the time it takes to reach full bright­ness and the shade of light itself.

Price varies between each kind of bulb.  Ener­gy-effi­cient bulbs do come at a slight­ly high­er upfront cost.  The increased cost is min­i­mal but it cer­tain­ly pays off over time with the mon­ey you save on ener­gy costs.

You can learn more about light­ing effi­cien­cy right here on our web­site, www.triplesenergy.com.  Look under Our Solu­tions, then Ener­gy Efficiency.