Are LED Lights Energy-Saving or Power-Hungry?

Are LED lights energy-saving or power-hungry? This question has been bothering me for a long time.

Later, when my new house was being renovated, I specifically asked the lighting installer about this.

What are LED lights?

In simple terms, LED lights are light-emitting diodes that convert electrical energy into light to meet our daily lighting needs.

Do LED lights save energy?

Before discussing whether LED lights save energy or not, we need to determine what “saving energy” means.

Narrowly speaking, “saving energy” refers to “low power consumption.” For example, if both of us turn on a light for one hour, and you consume 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity while I consume 2 kilowatt-hours, then you are more energy-saving than me.

However, in the context of electrical appliances, especially in colloquial language, the meaning of “saving energy” changes. We typically refer to “high efficiency” as “saving energy.”

For example, let’s say two people are moving bricks. Person A eats one bun and moves 10 bricks, while person B eats two buns and moves 30 bricks. Although person B eats more buns, their efficiency is higher, so we would say person B is “more energy-saving.”

The same principle applies to lighting fixtures. LED lights are considered “energy-saving” because they have higher efficiency. To emit the same brightness of light, LED lights consume less electricity compared to fluorescent lights or incandescent lights. With the same power consumption, LED lights emit brighter light than fluorescent lights or incandescent lights.

Therefore, the key factor lies in “brightness”! The reason we feel that today’s LED lights are not energy-saving enough is that our demand for brightness has increased. When it gets dark, every household wants the illumination to be as bright as daylight, which naturally leads to higher power consumption. If we want incandescent lights or fluorescent lights to achieve the same brightness, it would probably require even more electricity.