In the conservation article we talked about the importance of replacing incandescent lighting. Here we’ll explore alternatives to traditional lighting technology and look at the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Common alternatives to incandescent lighting include:
- Daylighting
- CFL – Compact Fluorescent Lights
- LED – Light Emitting Diode light sources
Daylighting
Daylighting is the use of natural sunlight to either provide all the light you need during the day or to reduce the amount of electric light needed to maintain a usable light level in your home.
Solar Daylighting Skylight - image by Solatube
Daylighting can be as simple as opening the blinds during the day or involve more complex systems like solar light tubes which gather sunlight at roof level and channel it through reflective tubes into the interior rooms of a building.
Unless you are building a custom home your opportunities for cutting edge daylighting will be fairly limited. And of course daylighting isn’t going to do you any good at night. However, if you can take advantage of natural daylight, you can reduce your electrical generating requirements and costs.
Of course, passive solar design can help reduce your electric bill even if you don’t have a solar power system installed.
Compact Fluorescent Lights
CFLs are the most commonly used alternative to traditional lighting. Fluorescent lights are nothing new, they’ve been commonly available since the mid 20th century. However, the spiralled compact units that plug into standard light sockets are relatively new. CFL technology arrived on the scene in the 1990s and was very expensive to start. 100W equivalent bulbs could easily cost $20 apiece.
CFL reliability has increased and cost decreased significantly in the last five years to the point that CFLs are now economically superior to incandescent bulbs and not factoring in the costs to run them. CFLs can now be had for a dollar or two.
Despite reliability and cost benefits, CFLs do have a downside. They contain hazardous substances, mainly mercury which makes it important to recycle them carefully and avoid breakage
LED Lighting
LED lighting is an exciting technology that is really starting to catch on. LEDs are superior for 3 reasons:
- High quality light – from a color spectrum standpoint
- They run extremely cool and efficient
- They last virtually forever
The one drawback of LED lighting is the fairly high cost for regular room lighting fixtures. Although, LED desk lamps and flashlights are very affordable now.
LEDs are inherently DC devices which makes them suitable for powering directly from the batteries in a solar electric system without having to convert to AC household current. This makes more efficient use of your solar generated power by avoiding the conversion losses introduced by the inverter and makes LED lights particularly useful with portable emergency power systems.