Increasing Home Efficiency with High Brightness LEDs
by Tamara Schmitz, Intersil Corporation
There are a multitude of reasons to outfit homes with High Brightness Light Emitting Diodes (HBLEDs). They save significant amounts of energy. They are safer for the environment because they contain no mercury, as fluorescents do. They reduce maintenance costs because their lifespan is the longest. They also increase safety because they don’t instantaneously fail; instead, they gradually degrade.
High power LEDs are driven at high current on the order of 350 – 1000 mA. With the latest technology, they can produce 40 to 80 lumens per watt and come in 1 – 3 watt packages. The major manufacturers, according to the US Department of Energy website, are Cree, Philips and Osram.
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