T&T: LED lighting warning

[Roger Bingham]

An article with some relevance to boating.

>From www.nytimes.com - Technology Section 28 Jan 2009

http://tinyurl.com/btnt2q

LEDs to the rescue? Not so fast-

There is an industry consensus that solid-state LED lights will play an
increasingly important role in energy reduction programs. Light-emitting
diodes use as little as one-tenth the power of an incandescent bulb, produce
pleasing light and last for up to 20 years of normal use. So the prospects
for light sources powered by LEDs looks to be, well, bright.

LED lamps are already used in street lights, office buildings and, less
frequently, homes. The inventor Dean Kamen recently lighted an island and
the structures on it solely with LED products.

But even as strong an LED booster as the Department of Energy, which
maintains its own Web site on solid-state lighting, cautions that the road
to the LED revolution will be rocky, littered with products that don't
perform as advertised and delayed by an inability to surpass the output of
today's conventional lighting sources.

Simply put, many of the LED products now available are not worth buying. 

That's evident even to the most casual observer who can see off-brand and
poorly assembled LED replacement bulbs for sale in the nation's largest home
improvement chains.

As James Brodrick of the Energy Department put it in a recent e-mailed
newsletter, "In the flurry of hype and excitement that comes with many new
products, it's easy to get carried away by what's cool."

Mr. Brodrick was commenting on the department's latest test of LED
replacement for standard fluorescent tubes. The DOE discovered that LED
"fluorescents" were not ready for prime time. They don't produce enough
light to be adequate substitutes for standard tubes, although they do use
energy efficiently.

Similarly, despite all the hoopla, you can't light a warehouse by using
LEDs; based on their current light output, you'd need so many LEDs, it would
defeat the purpose of saving energy.

The DOE has a program to test LED products and report on the manufacturers'
claims of light output. And there's even a labelling scheme that's been
devised that spells out how much light a particular LED product produces,
the color temperature of the light, the amount of power it uses and other
facts. 

The label will be familiar to consumers, because it has taken its design
cues from the standard government nutrition label found on most foods. But
this one won't be seen on LED products; it's aimed at professionals, who can
use the information to decide which products to purchase.

Meanwhile, experts recommend that customers approach LED replacement
products with caution. And consumers might want to consider Mr. Brodrick's
advice when it comes to purchasing an LED product: "sit tight for now."

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Regards

Roger Bingham