The benefits of LED technology
LEDs represent an incredible, fast moving and game changing technology within the lighting industry with many benefits over conventional light sources:
Long life – 50,000 hours to 70% lumen maintenance
Low maintenance – Design to fit and forget
Low energy – in the region of 65+ lumens per Watt
Colour – strong vivid colours and excellent whites
Colour change – Incredible range of up to 16 million different colours
Robust – Soild technology, no glass
Dimmable – Fully dimmable with all different protocols
Compact – New product designs never previously conceivable.
No heat or UV in the beam – much cooler operation
Environmentally friendly – LED products are great for the environment and are fully recyclable
No mercury
Here are four great case studies demonstrating the benefits of LED technology:
ONE – An energy efficient light source which pays for itself
LEDs are a low energy efficient light source, which are significantly improving in performance year on year. Indeed, current volume available LED efficiency is around 110 lumens per watt in 3000K. Equally as exciting is the fact that in lab conditions efficiencies of over 200 lumens per watt have already been achieved. The reality, however, is that LEDs are already a very efficient source now with well-designed LED products boasting a lifetime in excess of 50,000 hours to 70% lumen maintenance, giving designers a new creative freedom to utilise lighting in some pretty hard to reach installations.
Lighting design: Light Bureau
acdc recently completed the lighting at KPMG HQ in Canary Wharf in London. acdc Evolution luminaires were utilised throughout the building as opposed to traditional halogen downlights. The financial benefits of choosing this LED solution are shown below.
TWO – Long product lifetime offers new creative freedom.
Well design LED products should be able to offer a lifetime in excess of 50,000 hours to 70% lumen maintenance. LEDs’ low maintenance characteristics gives designers a new creative freedom to utilise lighting in some pretty hard to reach installations.
Lighting design: ATEA
Mounted at the top of this 68 story building, the tallest Tower in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, are over 1500 Taurus fittings utilised to create an envelope of light at the pinnacle of the Tower. The long lifetime of the LEDs on this project allowed a stunning lighting design to be created with breath-taking results!
THREE – Compact LEDs allow designer new flexibility.
A key benefit of LEDs is that they can offer an incredible amount of light from a very small source. This enables our product designers and lighting designers alike the opportunity to design products never previously conceivable and even on an individual project basis. Many of the products in the acdc range, are designed around the compact LED source enabling smaller, brighter and better products to be created.
Lighting designer: Speirs + Major
Speirs + Major approached acdc to work with them on this project to design a special solution for the illumination of the bronze struts on a curved lake crossing. The compact fitting features a deep recessed LED to minimize glare, along with a soft frosted, non-slip glass disk which flush mounts with the bridge structure. The results are truly stunning; a beautifully designed solution integrating the luminaires within the bridge.
FOUR – Vivid colours enable stunning visual effects.
The strong saturated colours created by the LED can work equally well for single colour or colour change applications. The intensity of the light is created by the LED chip itself, as opposed to secondary lenses or gels which are often less efficiently within other traditional light sources.
Lighting designer: Speirs + Major
An excellent example of this technology was on the solution developed with Speirs + Major for Infinity Bridge in the North East of England. The LED solution was integrated into the bridge with an on-board sonar sensor, which senses the movement of passing pedestrians walking along the bridge. Under normal conditions, the bridge was illuminated blue with 2 x 2 Watt blue LEDs, but once movement was detected, the blue LEDs dimmed to zero and the 2 x 2 Watt cold white LEDs were instantly illuminated. Once the person moved past the sensor, the white LEDs slowly faded down and the blue LEDs faded up, creating a ‘vapour trail’ as progress was made along the bridge. The strong LED colour result along with smooth dimming control makes for an impressive result and the project has won numerous international design awards.