By: Grace Gardiner ‘15
Published October 2014
Imagine it’s 8 p.m. on a Monday night: you’ve just picked up
your mozzsticks from Skeller and are heading to some brightly lit area on
campus—Lipscomb Library, the Ethyl Center in Martin, some nook in the Student
Center or Main Hall—to get a jump on all the reading you’ve been assigned when
the lights overhead begin to flicker. No, it’s not another full-blown power
outage—just a result of the countless inefficient and energy-guzzling fluorescent
and incandescent lights used across campus. It is this inefficiency and waste that
the Sustainability Office hopes to reduce through a campus-wide initiative
implementing LED technology.
The mechanism of light-emitting diode (LED) technology can
be ascertained on a simplistic level from its name: when electrons move within
a diode (a medium through which electrical current moves in one direction with
greater ease than in the other), they release energy in the form of photons,
the building-block particles of light. The science behind the
electroluminescence of LEDs accounts for the efficiency of their use compared
to other light technologies, such as incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Because
the electrical current is run through a diode as opposed to a wire filament, as
is the case in incandescent bulbs, more of the electrical energy can be
converted into light. Of the electrical energy pumped into incandescent bulbs,
only about five percent is converted into light energy. Ever burned yourself on
a lamp, even after its been turned off? That’s because most energy given off by
incandescent bulbs is lost as heat.
When LED and fluorescent technologies are compared, the
constant switching on and off of a lamp or lighting fixture containing fluorescent
light technology significantly decreases its longevity. LED lights, on the
other hand, are more suited to and even benefit from this cycling environment. Furthermore,
LED lights illuminate almost instantaneously when you flip on the switch, but fluorescent
lights need time to charge before conducting an electrical current efficiently. Current counts place LED lifespans at a
minimum of 25,000 hours; moreover, LEDs dim overtime, giving the heads-up that
they need to be changed out, whereas incandescent and fluorescent bulbs quit on
the spot.
Ludo Lemaitre, the College’s Sustainability Coordinator
offered another pro to the use of LEDs: “Most LED models can be dimmed
[and therefore] hooked to a light meter to avoid lighting up a room when there
is sufficient sunlight.” He even detailed a way in which LED light could “lower
the load on a generator in case of a power outage, which [would allow] more
appliances to be hooked to the generator.”
Despite all the benefits LED technology would generate at Randolph,
the cost of replacing every single bulb or light fixture across campus with
LEDs is still too high. In addition, LEDs are extremely sensitive to the
temperature of their environments and to changes in current flow. Nevertheless,
Lemaitre said that efforts are underway to phase in LEDs in “locations on
campus that ha[ve] incandescent light bulbs burning for extended periods of
time or renovated spaces with new light fixtures, where there would be a
greater return on investment.” A couple of places that have already been
retrofitted to LEDs are the chandeliers in Main and Smith Halls as well as the
lamps in the Maier Museum and Bell parking lots. The College is looking to
expand the LED initiative to include Wright Hall while it undergoes renovations
in the coming months.
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