To change the bulbs in the 60-foot-high ceiling lights of Buckingham Palace’s grand stairwell, workers had
to erect scaffolding and cover precious portraits of royal forebears.
In shifting to LED lighting, the palace is part of a small but fast-growing trend
that is redefining the century-old conception of lighting, replacing energy-wasting disposable bulbs with
efficient fixtures that are often semi-permanent, like those used in plumbing.
Studies suggest that a complete conversion to the lights could decrease carbon dioxide emissions from
electric power use for lighting by up to 50 percent in just over 20 years; in the United States, lighting
accounts for about 6 percent of all energy use. A recent report by McKinsey & Company cited conversion to
LED lighting as potentially the most cost effective of a number of simple approaches to tackling global warming
using existing technology.
LED lighting was once relegated to basketball scoreboards, cellphone consoles, traffic lights and colored
Christmas lights. But as a result of rapid developments in the technology, it is now poised to become common on
streets and in buildings, as well as in homes and offices. Some American cities, including Ann Arbor, Michigan., and Raleigh, N.C., are using the lights to
illuminate streets and parking garages, and dozens more are exploring the technology. And the lighting now
adorns the conference rooms and bars of some Renaissance hotels, a corridor in the Pentagon and a new green
building at Stanford.
LEDs are more than twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs, currently the standard for greener
lighting. Unlike compact fluorescents, LEDs turn on quickly and are compatible with dimmer switches. And while
fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, which requires special disposal, LED bulbs contain no toxic elements, and
last so long that disposal is not much of an issue.
“It is fit-and-forget-lighting that is essentially there for as long as you live,” said Colin Humphreys, a
researcher at Cambridge University who works on gallium nitride LED lights, which now adorn structures in
Britain.
The switch to LEDs is proceeding far more rapidly than experts had
predicted just two years ago. President Obama’s stimulus package, which offers money for “green” infrastructure
investment, will accelerate that pace, experts say. San Jose, Calif., plans to use $2 million in
energy-efficiency grants to install 1,500 LED streetlights.
Thanks in part to the injection of federal cash, sales of the lights in new “solid state” fixtures — a $297
million industry in 2007 — are likely to become a near-billion-dollar industry by 2013, said Stephen
Montgomery, director of LED research projects at Electronicast, a California consultancy. And after years of
resisting what they had dismissed as a fringe technology, giants like General Electric and Philips have begun
making LEDs.
Though the United States Department of Energy calls LED “a pivotal emerging technology,” there remain
significant barriers. Homeowners may balk at the high initial cost, which lighting experts say currently will
take 5 to 10 years to recoup in electricity savings. An outdoor LED spotlight today costs $100, as opposed to
$7 for a regular bulb.
Another issue is that current LEDs generally provide only “directional light” rather than a 360-degree glow,
meaning they are better suited to downward facing streetlights and ceiling lights than to many lamp-type
settings.
And in the rush to make cheaper LED lights, poorly made products could erase the technology’s natural
advantage, experts warn. LEDs are tiny sandwiches of two different materials that release light as electrons
jump from one to the other. The lights must be carefully designed so heat does not damage them, reducing their
lifespan to months from decades. And technological advances that receive rave reviews in a university
laboratory may not perform as well when mass produced for the real world.
Britain’s Low Carbon Trust, an environmental nonprofit group, has replaced the 12 LED fixtures bought three
years ago for its offices with conventional bulbs, because the LED lights were not bright enough, said Mischa
Hewitt, a program manager at the trust. But he says he still thinks the technology is important.
Brian Owen, a contributor to the trade magazine LEDs, said that while it is good that cities are exploring
LED lighting: “They have to do their due diligence. Rash decisions can result in disappointment or
disaster.”
At the same time, nearly monthly scientific advances are addressing many of the problems, decreasing the
high price of the bulbs somewhat and improving their ability to provide normal white light bright enough to
illuminate rooms and streets.
