LED 101

Not only are LED’s much more efficient than all the technologies out in the market in its light to wattage output ratio. The technology also has a unique characteristic which makes it even more effective. Fluorescent’s Mercury gas and Halogen’s gas is created via a chemical reaction where the cathode acts as a trigger with the surrounding gas particles to create spark, which creates light energy. The light is non-discriminating in that it evenly creates light waves in all directions. This may not be a great thing as most cases you will only need light towards one direction, which is downwards. The light being radiated upwards is often inefficient and manufacturers often use mirror reflectors to bounce these light rays back downwards, towards the ground. This light which is re-directed is much less efficient where a lot of it does not get redirected in the right direction as well as others being absorbed by the surrounding materials. As a guideline, roughly 65% of the total light is radiated downwards with a reflector. An LED light is able to radiate an average of 86% of its total light output towards its intended direction. These figures alone, represents a 24.4% higher energy efficiency, not to mention LED’s higher efficacy.