LEDs used for lighting in household have many applications such as table lamps, decorative lights, lamps for dinner table ... Due to being energy saving and durable, these products are increasingly popular.

After renewing the house, Mr Hieu and his wife decide to reuse the decorative since they thought it is still very new. However, being put into use, the chandelier has caused a complicated problem as it consumes a lot of electricity and is very hot. The chandelier has three tiers, with about 26 40W bulbs, so it consumes 1.040W per lighting hour. Then the chandelier has been“retired” once again after a month.

A new solution

Happened to be suggested by an architect friend about a new LED light bulb which is sold in Vietnam and can save up to 80% with similar brightness, Hieu immediately orders. He said: "Each LED light I ordered costs about VND140,000, has the capacity of 1.5 W, has the brightness similar to the 40W bulb, dose not cause much heat, and its life is up to 50,000 hours. The amount of money I have to spend is 26 x 140 = 3.64 million dong, although much more expensive than 40W bulb (about 5 thousand dong each bulb), but the overall power consumption of the chandelier is only 39W per hour and it does not cause much heat, so it will save lots of money for electricity if I use it in 5 consecutive years. "

Mr Ngoc Son, District 8, a professional graphic architect, said: "Every day I draw on the computer for about 10 hours, sometimes I need to see actual drawings, but the table lamp using 20W compact bulb is very uncomfortable for my eyes". So he wants to look for a new solution. After studying on the internet, he has chosen to buy a 4.5 W compact LED light to replace the 20W compact bulb. A compact LED light is 3-4 times more expensive than a 20W compact bulb, (about 180-200 thousand dong per bulb), but he has chosen it because "a LED bulb creates monochromatic light and uses DC power source so it does not blink like fluorescent lamps or compact lights".

International trend

Mr Nguyen Kien Tri, director of NBled company, a LED light manufacturer in Vietnam, said that: " LED civil light is the new trend which many countries, especially Australia, America, England, France…, are interested in since it uses new technologies, saves energy and protects the environment". "LEDs used for lighting in household have many applications such as table lamps, decorative lights, lamps for dinner table...”, said Mr Vo Khanh Tuyen, deputy director of Euro Light company, “For example, the table lamp of Philips - Netherlands uses Ledino technology under European standards, has the life of 100,000 hours (equivalent to 20 years) and the power consumption of only 7.5 W".

Mr. Duong Anh Khoa, general manager of Asia Green Power company, said: "Because LED light is produced by the semiconductor technology, production and processing costs are high, it is a few dozen times more expensive than ordinary fluorescent lamps, compact. In long term, each LED lighting system has the saving efficiency of 60-80% compared to ordinary lights, after 3 - 5 years of use or more, the initial investment will be retrieved".

Besides, each compact bulb has 5 - 6mg of mercury. Each year, about 60-10 million compact bulbs are installed. At least 2 million bulbs are broken after one year of use. This will discharge about 100kg of mercury into the environment. Developed countries have very clear regulations on collecting, treating and recycling broken compact fluorescent light bulbs but Vietnam does not, if the bulb is damaged, most people will put it in the trash and do not know where that amount of mercury will go.

Decreasing prices

LED lights will be cheaper and more accessible to household consumers by the product commercialization trend, especially in China where the plants with production lines of LED are continually growing. In 2005, China had only a few hundred plants, by 2008, this number was 2,000 factories, in 2009 was 4000 and by June 2010, nearly 5,000 factories have been specialized in manufacturing compact LED lights and fluorescent LED tubes for firms in the world.

LED technology is evolving rapidly, every six months, a new generation of LED lighting with higher efficiency is born. Companies which owns LED technology patents are well known electronics company on the market, such as Philips with 164 patents, Cree with 33 patents, Gelcore LLC (28), Osram (27), Siemens (23), Samsung (20), LG (17) ... Especially in April 2010, Cree company (USA) introduced the commercial product line with the luminescent efficiency of 160lm/W (luminescent efficiency of ordinary light bulbs is only 50 - 80lm/W). Therefore, the production cost of LEDs has dropped 30% compared with the previous years and in the coming years, it will continue to decrease to approach household consumers.

By Minh Duc