LED: pros and cons of cutting-edge lighting

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/08/04
By: Chris Chang, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — LEDs are dominating the lighting market with their versatility and cost-

effectiveness. Does that mean people should ride on this trend? Will these nontraditional light bulbs lead us to a more economical and eco-friendly future? This report hopes to shed some “LED light” on the matter.

What is LED?

LED stands for light-emitting diode, an electric component that glows when connected to direct current. The predecessor to LED lights, which was discovered in 1907, was yellowish. However, it was not until 1994 that LED lighting was commercialized. By that time, scientists had figured out how to produce LED light with multiple colors at low cost. By 2018, the global LED indoor lighting market was a US$15.87 billion industry.

In comparison with its incandescent and fluorescent predecessors, LED lightbulbs enjoy a longer lifespan. Per market standards, LED lamps last up to 40,000 hours compared to 10,000 and 1,000 hours for fluorescent and incandescent lamps, respectively. LEDs also save more energy, with an 800-lumen LED bulb only consuming 9 to 12 watts, 5 times less than an incandescent one.
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