Original air date - 7:30pm 23rd May 2017 :: A Question of Balance

Getting it right: the LED lighting revolution Sometimes we get it right: the outstanding technology, the support of the community and organisations and the government developing essential, effective regulations. Dr Barry Manor, Sustainability professional looks at the technology of lighting and how it can be used to achieve energy efficiency in domestic and commercial situations. t Lighting technology has been revolutionised in the last few years as LED lighting has become available. LED lights last a very long time in service. People can choose a warm light, an orangey light or a harsher cool, white light for places like kitchens and factories. There is virtually an LED light for any application at home or at work. Dr Manor was involved in developing for a former Feneral government,the regulation known as the Minimum Energy Performance Standard (MEPS). MEPS is applied to items such as light bulb, fridges and electric appliances and each year the threshold for lumens (units of light output for each watt of electricity) goes up. Incandescent bulbs are extremely inefficient as 95% of the electricity is converted to heat and only 5% is converted to light. The lumen threshold is way above that so those are now illegal to sell. There is big business supplying LED lighting to the commercial sector, the industrial sector and the domestic sector with refittings happening every single day. It might cost a factory $35,000 to upgrade to LED but that amount is paid back in 4-5 months, a return on investment of over 200%. Many factories and warehouses use high intensity discharge lighting which falls in between incandescent and LEDs. A 460 watt high bay light fixture can be replaced by an 80 watt LED fixture, a substantial saving. Unfortunately the present federal government is wedded to old technology particularly in electricity generation. They are not pro-active in sustainability or energy efficiency at all so it is up to individuals and individual businesses to implement these changes. Changing to LEDs is a win/win as it saves on pollution, saves on resources and saves money.