WORKING GROUP B – LIGHT

Publisher Summary In the industrialized countries, a considerable portion of the electrical energy is used in lighting. Light sources can be divided into classes according to the various ways the energy is supplied to generate the light. This chapter presents a list of these classes of light sources. It discusses the efficiency improvement of a light source based on the relation between the total energy consumed by the light source and the product of its luminous output, operation time, and the inverse of the product of lamp efficiency, ballast efficiency, and fixture efficiency. The incandescent lamp has many advantages. It is because of its low efficiency that it is replaced by other light sources in many applications. It is also possible to increase the efficiency of incandescent lamps by the application of heat filters. Incandescent lamp efficiency can also be improved by tungsten halogen incandescent lamps, by increasing the temperature of the thermal reactor. This can be achieved through a regenerative cycle using fluorine compounds.