New Lighting

Incandescent light bulbs are extremely inefficient converting only about 10% of the electricity they use into light (the rest is lost as heat). Although energy saving bulbs are more efficient, they too lose a significant amount of energy as heat.

Light emitting diodes ( LEDs ) lose very little energy as heat and also last up to 20 times longer than conventional light bulbs. With advances in their nanocrystalline structure in recent years, they are now emitting more light per watt of power consumed than incandescent bulbs and about the same as fluorescent bulbs.

Using different semiconductor materials, different colours of LED are possible (note this is the opposite effect as that described for solar cells which absorb different spectrums of light).