In recent times the use of luminaires with LED technology is acquiring a wide diffusion due to the growing concern for savings and energy efficiency of lighting installations.
This type of luminaires are already used in a wide number of applications such as:
- Information panels.
- Traffic lights.
- Energy-saving luminaires.
Its operation is based on the use of a special type of semiconductor diode called LED (acronym in English of light emitting diode).
These types of diodes emit light of reduced spectrum by being polarized by a supply voltage and circulating an electric current through them. This effect is known as photoluminescence.
Among the main advantages of LED luminaires are:
- High light efficiency, that is, the number of lumens contributed by each W of electrical energy consumed. Thus its light efficiency is of the order of 80 lumens / W compared to 55 lumens / W of the so-called low consumption bulbs and 10 lumens / W of conventional bulbs.
- Low temperature: the reduced consumption of LEDs the heat production of the same is low.
- Quick response, on the order of microseconds. This response time is much faster than that of halogens and fluorescents.
-High duration and reliability, much longer than that of any other lighting system (of the order of 50,000 hours).
- Low environmental impact, they do not contain gases or metals dangerous to the environment.
- The emitted light does not flicker.
Among the drawbacks are:
- High cost of acquisition.
- Low quality of the light generated, coldness.
- They do not allow the control of the intensity of the light generated by dimmers.
Due to these characteristics, these types of luminaires are currently ideal for applications where high reliability is required due to the number of hours of operation required and the quality of the light generated is not important.
Some of these applications for which LED luminaires may be interesting are:
- Lighting of car parks.
- Permanent lighting in corridors and circulation areas in public buildings.
- Outdoor lighting.
- Lighting of roads and stairs by means of beacons.
It is expected that in the future this type of luminaire will be an alternative to low-consumption luminaires, once the disadvantages mentioned above are overcome.
Authors:
