The widespread use of diode light sources makes one wonder: will this technology provide effective energy saving in the future or the high cost of products will not allow them to be widely used?
LED lamps have made a breakthrough in the field of lighting technology, providing consumers with universal light sources with low power consumption and an almost unlimited service life. The principle of operation of LEDs is based on the ability of some types of complex semiconductors to emit photons when an electric current passes through the pn junction. This fundamentally distinguishes an LED from an incandescent filament, which emits light only at high temperatures and has a limited resource.
The question regarding the mass use of LEDs for the partial resolution of the energy crisis cannot be answered unequivocally. On the one hand, almost half of electricity in household and administrative consumption is spent on lighting, so a tenfold reduction in this volume can seriously facilitate work on energy-saving measures. On the other hand, the production of LEDs is an extremely complex and resource-intensive technological process.
Advantages of LEDs over conventional lamps
The design of LEDs assumes a long service life of the light sources. The absence of an element heating up to the threshold of radiation in the visible spectrum eliminates the loss of energy for the formation of heat. Also, LEDs are very compact, which allows several hundred emitters to be placed on one panel, thereby providing high luminous power. LEDs can work in any climatic conditions, which cannot be said about incandescent lamps and fluorescent light sources. In matters of decorative lighting, LEDs also have a tangible advantage: by changing the value of the supplied voltage and current, you can adjust the power and color of the radiation, which is indispensable for illuminated advertising.
Disadvantages of LED light sources
In addition to the main disadvantage, which is the high cost of LED lamps, they are inferior to traditional light sources in some parameters. For example, the emission spectrum of LEDs is rather narrow. The light is generated with a high amplitude of oscillation, so the light source itself is visible from a long distance, but illuminates only a limited area. Also, efficient heat dissipation is critical for LED lamps, since the conductor itself under high temperature slowly decays and loses its quality.
The question of large-scale use
LEDs, in principle, can replace traditional light sources, providing significant savings in energy consumption. Their high cost is not a significant counterargument. The many times greater working life makes the cost of such lamps equivalent to a common light source. The only obstacle is the lack of mass production and low popularity among the population, but these problems are resolved over time.
