Light Emitting Diodes in Demand
Light Emitting diodes are becoming a victim of their own popularity. The demand for the LEDs have exploded and demand is reaching the current manufacturing capacity.
LED have until recently been used in an indicator capacity. The elder people among us may remember those red led digits used in the early generation calculators or space age watches. With the introduction of different colors their use had become wide spread as indicators in such things Hi-Fi equipment and as Power indicators. The LEDs low energy use made them ideal in this capacity. The drive was on for LEDs that can produce more ranges of light and particularly white light.
Overcoming this hurdle has opened the market for LED Televisions and as LED Lighting as replacements for illumination in the home. Last year (2009) the demand was for 63 billion units and with a manufacturing capacity of just 75 billion the world supply is going to be like gold.
It is clear to see why the demand is skyrocketing. The advantages of using LEDs for lighting are too good not to take advantage off. The most obvious is the power consumption when compared to incandescent lighting. Replacing an old bulb with a Light Emitting Diode bulb could reduce the the energy used by a factor of 4. Instead of needing 60 watts of energy you are now just using around 15 watts. Remember you pay for every watt used so that can be quite a saving on your energy bill.
The advantages just don’t stop with reduced energy consumption. The wasted energy in the form of heat produced by incandescent lighting is massively reduced and this opens up areas of design and use that were not available before. Lights can be dimmed or used on lower power settings without causing a change in the color of light emitted.
LED Lights do not flash like other lights. For most people this is not a problem but for many this may cause unwanted medical side effects most notably being headaches.
Just for the energy savings you can see why the demand is there and unless the manufacturing supply increases the LED for lighting might be a rare device. There is no doubt manufacturing will increase so there is no need to run out and stock up on spares. (Given the LEDs advantage of long life is might be a while before you need to change a bulb)
Next year the consumption will no doubt be much higher than 63 billion and this only enforces the advantages that this new form of lighting can bring to consumers.
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