If you're looking to save money around the home, create pools of clean, natural-seeming ambient light and make a significant cut back on your net energy spend, you could do a lot worse that install LED lighting in your home.
Since the EU started to phase out the sale of incandescent bulbs (sale which was finally outlawed this week), there have been two main competitors in the technological race to take the incandescent's space: LED bulbs, based on light-emitting diodes, and compact fluorescent lamps or CFLs.
The main advantage of CFLs is their initial price point - it's a little lower than for LEDs. However, with leaps and bounds being made in LED technology that sees the lighting being use by everything from tropical aquamarine centres to futuristic LED wallpaper, the mass production of the bulbs mean prices are coming down.
And, as a joint report by the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the UK-based N14 Energy Limited firm showed, LEDs stand out as the best green lighting investment over the course of the bulb.
Experts took average bulbs from each of the three major technologies - incandescent, CFL and LED - and pitted them against each other. They found the traditional bulb used 60W of electricity to produce a sustained light; a CFL bulb used 15W to provide the same illumination; and the LED bulb used just 12.5W.
"The light-emitting diode lamp is a rapidly evolving technology that, while already energy efficient, will become even more so in just a few short years," said PNNL's Marc Ledbetter.
"Our comprehensive analysis indicates technological advancements in the near future will help people who use these lamps to keep shrinking their environmental footprints."
The manufacture of LED bulbs was also found to be gentler on resource use, while the components were found to be safer and easier to recycle, making them truly a greener option.
If you're looking to add a little LED illumination to your home, why not start in the bathroom, with cutting edge LED bathroom lights. The recessed, waterproof lamps provide the exact same quality of light you would expect from traditional bulbs, but use less energy and produce less heat.
