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Why LED Lights Are Becoming Popular to Light Up Our Roads

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Rehan Roy

Have you ever wondered what our cities would look like if there were no street lights? A 5-minute blackout at night will bring out a sense of fear and uncertainty in most people. We are lucky indeed that technology has advanced so much to provide us with solutions to problems like this. As LED technology continues to advance, one place they are becoming increasingly popular is in the form of LED street lights. Let us see why LED is better than traditional lighting.

No Toxic Chemicals Used

Traditionally, our streets have been illuminated by high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps which use exciting sodium particles to produce lights. They also may contain mercury to counter-balance they yellow glow with white to light blue emissions. If these lamps break, the gases would escape causing contamination to the environment and possibly even becoming a fire hazard. Even in manufacturing plants, there is always the risk of a gas leak which could be detrimental to the environment and the staff working in such factories. On the other hand, LED street lights are not filled with any such gas. The mechanism of LED is very simple by the use of a diode, which is two electrodes (cathode and anode), through which electricity flows in one direction to emit visible light.

Warm-up Time

Sodium vapour lamps require a brief warm-up time. Once ignited, the sodium needs to melt and evaporate. Hence, it could take up to 10 minutes to reach its desired brightness. Traditional HPS street lights are prone to flicker as the bulb reaches the end of its useful life. This is not the case with LED street lights. LED lights are ideal for purposely turning on and off because they respond almost instantly and they do not require any warm up time. LED lights produce steady lighting without any flickering.

Colour Temperature

Sodium lights are known for their warm yellow glow producing light at around 2200K. This is a limiting factor as they can only produce this one colour. If you are not looking for this warm deep yellow light, you’ll need something other than sodium vapour lights to satisfy this. LED street lights are available in a variety of colour temperatures. The colour temperature of LED lights ranges from 2200 K to 6000 K which is from a warm yellow to a cool blue range. This makes LED lights more versatile in its usage.

While the two technologies of producing lights for our streets are entirely different, LED lights are the latest innovation and are proving to be more efficient at the current situation. Having lost their traditional advantage which they enjoyed in the 1970’s, there is very little reason to continue using sodium lights when LED lights are more widely available.

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