We can shape your grounds and landscape to showcase the amazing structural features of your home, also spotlight your entries, and frame your beautiful surroundings and background.
Our outdoor LED lighting designs bring your home to life while other homes disappear into the night. We can create warm and inviting outdoor living areas that can be enjoyed at all hours and all year long! We also can add value to your home by spotlighting its beautiful features and highlighting the best elements of your landscape. We will also increase the safety and security of your home, helping to prevent accidents and deter would be burglers with lit up entries, walkways, driveways, and potential hiding spots. SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION
Why Use Outdoor Lights for Architecture?
Framing – lights frame out a home at night and give it more depth and appeal. It’s amazing how a few lights, with proper placement, can capitalize on the architectural design of a home and boost the ambiance.
Ambiance – great lighting makes for the most amazing ambiance at night. Consider driving up to your home with great lighting versus a dark home. You feel warmer. You feel more welcome when you arrive.
Curb appeal – a house with great lighting certainly stands out amongst the rest. Lights are the evening curb appeal you want to showcase the beautiful architecture of your house. It’s a great touch that will elevate the value of your home and land.
Security – a well-lit house is less of a target for burglars. If someone is looking to break into a home at night, they’re typically looking for an easy target with no lighting so that they aren’t visible. Lights provide an extra layer of security for you and your home.
Using Outdoor Lights To Highlight Architecture
Have you noticed a home at night that has great architectural and landscape lights? Didn’t it frame the house even better?
Architectural lights add so much to a home at night. It adds more framing to the elements of your home and brings out beauty of your landscape surroundings. Which types of lights are typically used in outdoor architectural lighting ltd projects? Here are a few:
Bullet lights
Wash lights
Flood lights
For example, bullet lights can be used to highlight columns on a front porch. Bullet lights are placed at the base of the columns and pointed upward. Bullet lights can also be used around other structural elements of a home, to showcase the architecture.
Wash lights are a great addition for accenting walls and giving more depth to your entire home. Wash lights provide soft light for walls and larger areas of architecture. Wash lights are great when floods are too harsh. But floods are also great for illuminating large areas of your home.
We’d like to thank Lisa Wetherell for contributing todays article. For more about Lisa, read her bio below.
The materials and tools we use in today’s architecture are a lot more advanced than what we had a few decades ago. It’s easier to create the project of a building and, the assistance of computerized technology lets you consider a wider range of aspects.
We think this is one of the reasons why more designers and architects present a stronger interest in selecting the right type of lightning. Nowadays, it’s a lot easier to imagine how the presence or absence of light would impact the overall design and feel of a room.
Specialists are also more aware of the three factors that bring lighting into focus: the health of people living in the building/using the room, the effect on the human psyche, and overall energy consumption. Let’s have a look at each of these factors and discuss the impact of architectural lighting ltd in our lives.
LIGHTING EFFECT ON OCCUPANTS’ WELL-BEING
Given that we build structures with the ultimate purpose of inhabiting them, it’s only natural to want to consider people’s health when designing the project. As it turns out, lighting (natural or artificial) has a huge impact on our everyday life.
For instance, the position of an artificial light source can have an impact on the health of our eyes. Also, they type of artificial light we use can affect our complexion, the way we sleep, and the way our brain processes new information.
Even more, there are studies that prove that offices with good lighting help employees stay productive for longer periods of time. Also, well-lit spaces are more attractive, which is why commercial spaces pay a lot more attention to this aspect.
LIGHTING AND THE HUMAN PSYCHE
The intensity, color, and even type of light have a powerful influence on how we think and feel. But our mental health is also influenced by the amount of natural light we get exposed to. This is why we tend to feel sad and blue when it’s less natural light outside (usually during winter).
As an architect, it’s important to keep these aspects in mind when designing buildings for office or for residential purposes.
ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING & ENERGY CONSUMPTION
Energy consumption is another important factor that influences the shape of your final project. While we all enjoy well-lit spaces, the energy costs are on the rise these days. Not to mention that we also have to consider the environmental aspect of creating more energy.
Nowadays we need buildings that have a smaller footprint on the environment, which is why so many architects consider alternative resources (such as solar). However, you can also show care for the environment by integrating smart lighting solutions, dimmers, and reducing the amount of wasted light.
A good way to create a breathtaking lighting layout that is also energy efficient is to use LED bulbs instead of fluorescent light. The LED technology is more environmentally friendly and energy effective due to the directional nature of the lighting technology.
ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING & FEELINGS
Light influences the way we perceive volume and depth, which is why a well-lit room may seem more spacious than it actually is. Of course, other factors play a hand in creating the illusion (such as interior design and furniture arrangements), but the lighting makes the first visual impact.
Whether it’s artificial or natural, light can be used to direct a viewer’s attention towards certain areas and enlist a wide array of feeling before any other elements do. Thus, we can consider light as the main element that supports architecture.
If you take a look at the grand designs of history, all the architect geniuses we know used architecture and light together.
Let’s take Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia as an example. While the structure is impressive in its size and shape, the moment you step inside you are mesmerized by the way light plays with the materials and colors on the walls and columns. The grandeur of this architectural monument is blown out of proportions by masterful use of light!
HOW TO EFFECTIVELY COMBINE LIGHT AND ARCHITECTURE
Richard Kelly, one of the pioneers of architectural lighting design, esteemed architect and Yale University School of Architecture alumnus, identified three elemental kinds of lights.
These are:
Focal Glow (nowadays called task lighting) – This is the type of light designers use to draw attention and direct the viewer, making certain objects/areas easier to see. It is bright and focused, and it’s used in both commercial and residential structures.
Ambient luminescence – Mostly used to provide light to the entire space and make the occupants feel safe, this is the ambient light. It should be uniform and it’s best if you don’t see the source.
Play of brilliants (or, as designers know it today, accent lighting) – Used to stimulate the body and spirit, this type of lighting is the one to create emotions and drive action.
While Richard Kelly, named these three elements in his lecture in 1952, architects and designers still base their projects on them. His discovery marked a monumental change in the way we perceive lighting, which is why he is still one of the most influential people in the niche.
But he didn’t stop here! His work allowed him to observe the way light affects human behavior and feelings, showing that architecture and lighting have a strong impact on each other.
HOW TO INFLUENCE A SPACE THROUGH LIGHT
Architects have a bunch of tricks up their sleeves when it comes to delimiting spaces or creating emotions. For instance, when used cleverly, glass can have a huge influence on how light enters a building.
Let’s go back to our previous example (Sagrada Familia) – that building has huge painted windows that allow the light to enter in a wide range of colors. Each window is designed to direct light towards a certain architectural element, thus highlighting its beauty and creating a wonderful game of colors.
Another way to use light is by combining it with reflective surfaces (walls or floors). For instance, light that goes through walls and reflects on the floor can add depth and space to a room that’s not that big or bright.
Furthermore, light can be directed through a building using an array of reflective surfaces positioned in different angles. Something similar to the way you see actors using mirrors to direct light through a dark tomb in movies. Architects and designers use sliding panels and angled skylights to achieve a similar effect using natural light.
WRAP UP
Put in short, architectural lighting is an important element that can make a huge difference for the way a building is perceived. Whether you’re designing a commercial gallery or a home, light plays a crucial role in the way people will feel the moment they step inside!
Our goal here on the Lighting Insights Blog is to offer helpful answers to common lighting questions and to keep you posted on key developments in the industry.
Read: ‘Philips Lighting spun off in IPO, now world’s largest lighting company’
Lighting news may seem niche and sporadic to those outside the industry, but if you’re in the industry, you’re probably well-acquainted with the rapid pace of development. The emergence of LED lighting solutions has busied the news cycle pretty substantially, with new products and creative innovations making their way to market all the time.
Not every lighting story will make its way to this blog, though. So we wanted to let you know where we like to get our industry news.
Here are five top-notch lighting news sources that all industry folks should have bookmarked:
1. LEDs Magazine
This publication, as you might infer from its name, covers a single lighting technology: LED. That’s not too different from a lot of other lighting news sites, however, as the rapid pace of innovation in the LED world creates a lot more headlines than the occasional fluorescent phase out or incandescent development.
LEDs Magazine houses everything from a suppliers directory to white papers, a jobs board, a press releases clearinghouse, and a fantastic news page.
Here’s a recently published story on ledsmagazine.com about the Department of Energy’s findings on outdoor LEDs in a harsh environment.
2. Edison Report
Edison Report acts as a news aggregate, delivering mostly headlines, with a handful of full stories and link-outs to boot. According to its About page, it has been around since 1999.
One interesting feature on the site is a “Price Increases” page, which has headlines like “Philips Day-Brite Announces Price Increase” and “25% Fluorescent Price Increases.”
Like a lot of industry sites, Edison also has a section for press releases as well as a jobs board.
All in all, Edison Report is relatively bare-bones – both in form and function – but is definitely handy to those looking to quickly skim the latest developments in the industry without getting tangled in long, complex articles.
3. Architectural Lighting
Architectural Lighting is a go-to site for designers and lighting designers looking for inspiration. Most of its online content is dedicated to featuring high-end architecture with excellent photos and in-depth writing.
The site also houses a good deal of educational material in addition to a Product Directory, which showcases innovative products ranging from ballasts and controls to solar products, specialty fixtures, luminaires and the like.
Architectural Lighting is an excellent resource for lighting professionals, but may be too advanced for those who aren’t immersed in the lighting world daily.
4. LightNOW blog
Like Edison Report, LightNOW acts as a lighting news aggregator, just usually with more verbose posts. Intermingled with that kind of reporting, too, are opinion pieces which are meant to “make you consider another point of view,” according to the site’s About page.
LightNOW is easy to navigate, thanks to a stripped-down, simple format. Veteran lighting journalist Craig DiLouie provides clean copy and frequent updates as the lead producer of the blog. The blog also features weekly product highlights in an installment called ‘Product Monday.’ Here are the last two such posts:
Product Monday: Soraa moves beyond lamps with new ambient luminaires
Product Monday: Rubik by Mark Architectural Lighting
5. Energy.gov – Solid-State Lighting News
Unlike most of the sites above, the Department of Energy website – Energy.gov – generally only publishes releases related to its activity, like this announcement about a report on flicker meters.
A lot of news originates on this site and ends up trickling to sites like ours or any of the above.
This section covers solid-state lighting, in particular, and includes a host of related helpful educational resources.
Regency’s Lighting Insights Blog
Regardless of whether you end up referencing the above sites, our Lighting Insights Blog will be here for you – helping you to make sense of Industrial lighting jargon and news.
You’ll see some similarities between our blog and the ones above. But you’ll also probably notice some more practical posts here, like these:
Be sure to subscribe to our blog for objective, helpful lighting information and news. And let us know in the comments if there is anything you’d like to see us cover more of on the blog.
Smart street lights represent a cost-efficient solution for cities working to reduce energy consumption, enhance public safety, and foster further developments in intelligent infrastructure.
For cities looking to invest in smart technology, intelligent street lighting offers the chance to reap outsized benefits for a relatively small investment. In its simplest form, networked LED lighting promises to lower energy costs by using motion detectors to provide illumination only when needed. Beyond energy efficiency and advanced lighting capabilities, city planners looking to harness data-driven intelligence can use networks of smart street lights as the foundation on which to build powerful smart city applications.
While there are a variety of smart city initiatives that can benefit both officials and citizens, adaptive lighting offers city planners the most bang for their buck. First and foremost, it can be implemented piecemeal and without a massive overhaul of existing infrastructure — by simply replacing street lights that already need to be upgraded.
Smart street lights can be outfitted with a vast array of sensors and cameras to collect critical data, help cities make well-informed decisions, and improve city useability for residents. On top of the Internet of Things (IoT), street lights can communicate with each other wirelessly while monitoring traffic conditions, tracking maintenance updates, alerting officials to potential security risks, and more.
Easily scaled, and extremely flexible, intelligent lighting systems will very likely be at the forefront of urban development as cities begin to take a leap into the future.BONUS:CompTIA Research Report: Building Smarter Cities and Communities
Harnessing the Power of Smart Street Lights
Navigant Research estimates that by 2023, there will be 100 million LED street lights in use, one for each HPS fixture. These smart lights will help cities reduce electricity costs, lower CO2 emissions, and improve maintenance. With auto-dimming, scheduling, and a host of other capabilities, cities could see a 50-75% reduction in energy costs via smart street lighting.
But energy efficiency is just the beginning. Air quality monitoring, traffic control, accessible public wi-fi, security cameras, gunshot detection devices, and digital signage/advertising all represent viable candidates for implementation into urban street light infrastructure. Public safety applications could reduce crime up to 10%, according to Silver Spring Networks.
Intelligent Lighting in Action
Smart street lights are cropping up in cities across the globe, with promising results in terms of safety and energy conservation. Chicago leads the way with a $160 million project to replace 85% of the city’s public lights — an initiative that the mayor’s office projects will lower energy consumption by 50-75%.
Los Angeles has installed smart street lights on 80% of its roadways. These connected lights feature LED bulbs and 4G LTE wireless connectivity, as well as sensors capable of detecting gunshots and other threats to public safety. In the first year alone, LA has benefitted from a 63% reduction in energy costs in addition to improved city-wide cell service.
In Dallas, TX, the Smart Cities Living Lab program is developing several projects in the West End Historic District. The city has partnered with AT&T to install 23 smart street lights with LED bulbs, as well as additional devices that can manage parking, irrigate lawns, and monitor air quality. Since beginning this initiative, the West End has seen a 35% reduction in energy costs, 12% increase in local business revenue, and 6% decrease in crime. If the program were to be implemented across Dallas’ 85,000 lights, the city would expect approximately $90 million in yearly savings.
As Schenectady, NY deploys smart street lighting throughout the city, Mayor Gary McCarthy is examining further ways to benefit from IoT technology. The city’s LED lights use motion sensors to dim when there is no traffic present, and the entire network is accessible through a secure web browser. Schenectady light posts will be equipped with HD cameras to improve the flow of traffic and protect citizen safety. McCarthy also believes that these cameras could enhance city maintenance efforts by, for example, taking one photo of the street surface per month over a three to five year period.
ROI for Smart Light Initiatives
As of 2017, the Connected Street Lights Market was worth $3.59 billion, and is projected to reach nearly 9 billion by 2024. Currently, Europe holds the largest market share at 34%, followed by North America and Asia. With substantial funds being invested in smart lighting, it’s essential for city officials to show the value of intelligent infrastructure not only in terms of its value to citizens but also its potential return on investment (ROI).
Fortunately, the payback for smart street lights is faster and higher than most other smart city initiatives, with most reports estimating cost reductions of 70-75%. The switch to LED bulbs provides substantial (and highly measurable) short-term ROI, which paves the way for the simultaneous implementation of technologies with longer paybacks and hard-to-capture ROI like real-time traffic monitoring.
A Silver Springs analysis demonstrates that LED bulbs alone are likely to pay off in approximately eight years, while IoT-enabled lamps are expected to achieve payback in just six years. While adding connectivity may increase initial costs by 20%, it’s expected to deliver 30% or more in further cost savings throughout the lifespan of the bulb — which can last up to 20 years.
Connected street light initiatives continue to make more and more sense. Successful case studies are stacking up, hardware costs are coming down and city planners are finding it easier and easier to get public buy-in. The short-term ROI produced by smart street lights’ core capabilities is increasingly undeniable.
But the bigger opportunity rests with the ancillary capabilities — the massive and diverse array of data that can be collected and converted — from raw information into intelligence and action. Transportation departments might be responsible for deploying smart street light networks, but all city departments stand to benefit — from housing to labor to law enforcement to energy and beyond.
Download our White Paper How to Measure Smart City ROI to learn more about how municipalities can leverage best practices for evaluating the success of intelligent infrastructure projects.
Stadium lighting is not just installing the flood lamps onto the ceiling. Before that, we need to have a very clear photometric design to have the best lighting outcome. There are many types of projects such as new light installation, LED replacement, color changing lighting design and etc.
When comparing with the traditional lighting fixtures such as HPS, halogen, metal halide and fluorescent, LED lights are better for stadium and spacious sports field. It is because it shines the football field further and brighter and reduce the power consumption at the same time. It significantly saves electricity cost on lighting for football, baseball, or cricket stadium.
This page will share with you the guide to select the LED stadium floodlights, and then introduce to you the best 6 sports lighting you can buy on Amazon.
Lighting is a critical aspect in a number of industries such as manufacturing, mining, marine, packaging, and even sports. Electrical fixtures for such industries are designed for heavy duty performance and can last even in the most adverse conditions such as extreme temperatures and climate.
Apart from ensuring proper lightening and enhancing the output, electrical lighting also helps in maintaining safety in your workplace. If you have a well-lit workspace, then your workers can avoid unwarranted accidents like stepping on sharp tools, bumping into equipment, etc. You can use a wide range of electrical light fixtures such as LED, magnification lights, fluorescent lamps, halogen machine lighting, etc.
You must choose the right light fixtures based on the environment you work in and the lighting demands of the space where you need to install them. Let us look at some industrial lighting fixtures that are available.
5 Types of Industrial Lighting Fixtures
These are five of the most commonly used lighting fixtures across a multitude of industries.
Explosion Proof Lighting
In industries like mining, transportation, steel, marine, etc., there are high risks of explosions which you cannot overlook at any cost. You have to make sure that the lighting fixtures have the ability to withstand the heat and pressures that are generated by an explosion. Explosion proof fixtures meet some of the most stringent quality standards of the National Electric Code.
Indoor Fixtures
Indoor fixtures can be installed in a number of indoor work areas like workshops, workstations, bays, etc. As different work environments have different requirements for lighting systems, it would be ideal to contact a supplier who can offer you customized lighting requirements. Ensure that the lighting systems are capable of withstanding harsh working conditions as well as extreme temperatures.
Roadway Fixtures
Roadway fixtures are ideal for places where you need high mast lighting. Safety is extremely important on the roads and is of major concern for the protection of all those present on the road, which is why you need a brightly lit road. You can control the amount of light generated by these roadway fixtures to make them brighter or dimmer, based on the time of the day they are being switched on.
Flood Lighting
Every sports ground requires proper lighting. It isn’t a pleasant experience for the spectators when they can’t clearly see what’s going on in the ground/field and it would equally hinder the players from performing well if the lighting is compromised. Regardless of which sport it is, be it tennis, football, cricket, basketball or rugby, flood lights are an indispensable part.
Lighting for Hazardous Locations
Places like nuclear plants, mining fields, oil rigs, and underwater operations require high quality and failure-free lighting solutions. It is important that there are various kinds of light sources as well as lights so that the work doesn’t halt due to lighting failure of any kind. Ideally, you must not use regular industrial light fixtures in such places. Make sure the lighting you use are reliable, have a long life and have low maintenance costs.
Always focus on the quality of the lighting fixtures before buying them as you cannot compromise on the safety and the reliability aspect. Even though the main job of the fixtures is to light up an area properly to ensure smooth workflow, you must also make sure if these fixtures are intrinsically safe to ensure safety measures. Only invest in those that will last for a long time. You can achieve all these when you opt for high-quality materials.
Understand your requirements carefully before investing in the lighting fixtures. Consult with our experts at D & F Liquidators who can identify the needs of your industry and suggest you the best light fixtures possible. We have a wide range of lighting fixtures that will not only offer you exactly what you need but you will also get your money’s worth. Get in touch with us for more details.
The more than 350 million bulbs that light up the world consume a humongous amount of energy, which, many estimates put at about 19 percent of world’s energy consumed. These lighting costs are essential and not avoidable, though they cost governments roughly Euro 3 billion every year. Though LED lights are gradually replacing CFL and incandescent lamps, more than three fourths of the existing streetlamps are of more than 25 years old.
Most of these old vintage streetlamps are ON throughout the night, even when there is no one around. Therefore, with the aim of reducing their carbon footprint, while saving both money and electricity, an increasing number of cities around the world are opting in for smart technologies to prevent unnecessary wastage of lights, by means of dimming or automatically switching ON/OFF these lights at night. A pilot project was conducted in Norway, using self-dimming streetlamps along routes with low traffic, at night by Tvilight, an Amsterdam-based company working towards sustainable, smart cities of the future.
Making Street-lights Smart
Smart street lighting uses wireless technologies to control and monitor the actual amount of energy consumed by these street-lights. This data is then used to initiate suitable measures to reduce energy consumption through power conditioning. The ‘smartness’ of the street-lights is derived from a micro-controller and some sensors coupled with a wireless module. This entire unit is called the controller. This, when installed on the street-light pole, would communicate data between street-lights and thus control LED street lighting depending on traffic flow. Data generated from each street-light, is then passed on to the base-station via wireless means, thus enabling a real-time monitoring of the system. The mode of operation can be chosen as either manual or auto mode. The control system can be programmed to turn-off lights as per a predetermined schedule. This system can also be programmed to vary the intensity of lighting to suit predetermined situations.
Light Dependent Resistors (LDR) sense light and it automatically switches OFF lights. This results in huge energy savings and avoids wastage of energy by glowing street lights in unwanted areas. The whole system can be operated using solar energy with a battery backup. Sensors using Passive Infra Red (PIF) technology are used to sense the presence of people and the light intensity of an area. This data is then transmitted wirelessly to the controller, which in-turn switches ON/OFF the streetlight or enables dimming or brightening of the area, depending on the presence or absence of people. This is highly effective in areas experiencing low traffic at sometimes of the night.
Old v/s New Technologies
A detailed study of the existing and new technologies gives us a better perspective of the advantages and disadvantages of both systems. These can be listed as follows:
Disadvantages of Existing System
Manual Switching off/on of Street Lights
More Energy Consumption
High expense
More manpower
Advantages of the Proposed System
Automatic Switching of Street lights
Maintenance Cost Reduction
Reduction in CO₂ emission
Reduction of light pollution
Wireless Communication
Energy Saving
Reduction of manpower
How Smart-lighting Works
The smart street-lighting system consists of IR sensors, LDRs, microcontroller, relays, transmitters, receivers and Wifi Modules linked up to each other over wireless media. The resistance of an LDR decreases when light falls on them and increases in the absence of light. Vehicles passing by a street light are detected by IR sensors. Relays are used to switch on/off the street-lights. Transmitters and receivers are programmed microchips that control a computer’s interface to its connected street-light system. This real-time information and data can be accessed over the internet from anywhere, anytime.
An IoT based smart street-lighting system is a cost efficient, practical, eco-friendly and the safest way to save energy. The status information is easily accessible anytime and anywhere. This very efficiently eliminates the problems of saving of energy and also disposal of incandescent lamps. However, the initial cost of installation and maintenance can be the deterrents to adoption of this system.
The development of LEDs has resulted in lighting systems with long life, cool lighting, devoid of any toxic material and fast switching capabilities. These result in several advantages that outweigh the current limitations. Considering the long term benefits, the initial cost should never be a taken as a limiting factor, due to faster Return on Investment (ROI). The scope of such a system can be expanded to include other applications such as industrial lighting, campus lighting and parking lots of huge shopping malls etc. This can also be used for surveillance in corporate campuses and industries and security applications.
The science behind light and lighting design is an expansive field; however, it is possible to narrow the field down to a few key fundamentals to keep in mind.
Target Light Level
Depending on the kind of facility you are designing, the light level requirements will differ quite a bit. The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America provides task-based guidelines to ensure that the proper level of illumination is available. For power plant lighting, this is a concern because, without the proper level of light, workers will not have the level of visibility needed to complete their work, causing quality to decline and increasing the risk of workplace injuries.
Light Efficiency
The efficiency of a lighting system is measured in lumen intensity per watt. In simpler terms, it is a measure of how much light is generated per watt of energy used. This is extremely important in ensuring that a facility is affordable to operate. Inefficient lighting systems drive up electricity usage for lighting and can even raise a facility’s heating and cooling costs, because many bulbs waste electricity by generating heat rather than light. In power light facilities, where the cost of operating heavy machinery represents a huge expense, reducing operating costs becomes even more essential.
Quality of Illumination
Different lighting solutions for power plant lighting deliver vastly different levels of light quality. Two elements of light quality which have a major effect on the safety and productivity of your facility are glare and light pooling. Glare from fluorescent bulbs or badly designed daylighting can cause headaches and eye strain, damaging worker productivity. On the other hand, uneven light reduces visibility, particularly when it comes to edge detection. This makes working with heavy machinery even more dangerous, which is why research shows that facilities lit with diffused natural light experience significantly less workmen’s compensation cases than buildings that use artificial light.
Color Temperature
Color-correlated temperature measures the spectrum of light that a lighting system provides. The spectrum of light affects not only the appearance of a space, but also the health of building occupants. Excessive exposure to blue spectrum light, such as that produced by many LED bulbs, negatively affects a person’s circadian rhythm and contributes to insomnia and seasonal affective disorder. Broad spectrum natural light on the other hand, is shown to aid in the prevention of rickets, multiple sclerosis, hypertension, and some autoimmune diseases.
More and more locales and municipalities are turning to LED street lights to replace their high-pressure sodium (HPS) fixtures. They are making a wise choice, given the following five advantages provided by LED roadway lighting.
Less Toxicity and Heat According to Jacob Silverman at HowStuffWorks.com, one of the biggest selling points of LED-based setups over HPS-based setups is that LEDs do not contain mercury, which is toxic. HPS fixtures do contain mercury and other unhealthy chemicals. Additionally, LEDs emit very little heat, according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Saver resource.
Energy Efficiency For city planners that desire green outdoor lighting, LEDs are the way to go. Per Silverman, LEDs are extremely efficient when it comes to using energy. In fact, they are twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs. Additionally, compared to traditional streetlights, LEDs can pump out 22 more lumens per watt.
Support of Smart Technology LEDs can seamlessly integrate with modern city infrastructures, which are becoming more intelligent all the time. For instance, LEDs can make it easy to adjust lighting intensity depending on the time of day and other conditions. That’s because unlike other lighting options, LEDs are dimmable.
LEDs can also provide flexible levels of support to a city’s transportation infrastructure, making it more efficient. For example, in Copenhagen, LED street lights brighten and dim depending on whether a vehicle is around or not, per The New York Times.
Precision As pointed out by the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, which is part of the Department of Energy, outdoor LED lighting projects are able to build lighting setups that deliver a great deal of precision. LEDs allow for a “high degree of control” regarding light patterns and directions. By contrast, traditional lights tend to spray light in all directions, unless they are manipulated with reflectors or other clunky add-ons.
Rising Popularity, Falling Prices Though LEDs are becoming more in-demand than ever, in general, their prices are falling. That is just one more reason this ever-improving technology is rising in popularity.
Indoor Lighting 