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Traditional incandescent light bulbs, which includes halogen bulbs, turn barely more than 10% of their electricity input into visible light. They function by heating a metal filament to almost melting point and most of the input electricity is, as you might expect, dissipated in the form of heat. It would therefore be something of an understatement to describe them as not exactly efficient at doing the very thing they are supposed to do

As small heaters, traditional light bulbs are actually quite good, but unfortunately this heat is usually dissipated somewhere utterly unhelpful such as the ceiling; also if you want instead to keep the temperature down then they simply make your air conditioning work harder. However you look at it, you are spending good money on heat you most likely didn’t want and getting a poor deal on light into the bargain.

Energy saving or “low energy” light bulbs that are significantly more efficient have been available for quite a while now. These mostly take the form of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and are currently the most commonly available type of energy saving bulb for the domestic market. CFLs have not really caught on though, most probably because they’re oversized, take a unacceptable period of time to attain maximum brightness and are expensive by comparison with incandescent bulbs. Despite some improvements to make CFLs more discrete, attain maximum brightness in less time, and reduce the price but there is no hiding the fact that they have a poor image, which is not helped by the fact that they also contain poisonous mercury vapour and are thus not easy to dispose of in an environmentally friendly way.

The new generation of energy efficient light bulbs use light emitting diodes (LED). These are massively more energy saving than current CFLs but until fairly recently have not been quite bright to replace general domestic lighting.

However LED bulbs are now viable as genuine alternatives, especially the ones made to replace GU10 or MR16 halogen lamps. If you are contemplating trying this route then you should also be aware that many white LED bulbs (particularly those labelled “cool” as opposed to “warm” white) can have a slightly bluish tinge, which some people find reasonably attractive but which can stick out rather if mixed with other types of lighting.

Undoubtedly though, the principle benefit of LED light bulbs is their ability to they convert 90% of the electricity consumed directly into light while losing practically none of that precious energy as heat which means that they need a lot less energy to operate them. Around ten times less which in terms of cost savings is massive for the simple reason that the cost of electric lighting is nearly all about the running cost. The price of the light bulbs themselves is simply insignificant by comparison.

Then there is that fact that LED light bulbs last over twenty times longer and therefore need to be replaced far less frequently. The main benefits are pretty clear; LED lighting saves you the consumer money, but it also aids the environment too. The manufacturing process is much simpler than that used to make CFL bulbs and there are no awkward disposal problems.

The primary environmental benefit is of course related to the fact that they consume so little energy and therefore considerably less electricity has to be produced which also means less carbon dioxide emissions. A win-win situation really.

As should be plain from this article it’s difficult to see what’s not to llke about GU10 LED; to learn more try this article about how to replace halogen with LED.