Environmental and Energy Improvements of LED Lamps over Time: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment

ABSTRACT

Recent technological advances have made light emitting diode (LED) lamps available to the domestic replacement lightbulb market at much lower prices than ever before. Longer life and higher efficiency have occurred as the products matured. This research studied how LED lamps have changed in the last 5 years and how changes to the lamps impact the environment. A life cycle assessment has been conducted using data from the Ecoinvent database to determine how three recently manufactured lamps compare to the 2011 counterpart in terms of environmental impacts. We found that the newer lamps all perform better than the 2011 A19 LED on environmental impacts and all are now significantly better than traditional lighting technologies. All three lamps have improved in key environmental impact areas, specifically hazardous waste to landfill due to reduced use of metals. The LED lamps studied are outperforming older LED lamps in all environmental impact categories.

KEYWORDS:

• Life cycle assessment
• environment
• solid state lighting
• technology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank colleagues at the University of Portland, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the University of California at Berkeley for helpful conversations and insights about this project. Additional thanks to Michael Beck, Allen Hansen, and Jared Rees for help with disassembling and identifying components of the light products.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

Rachel Dzombak's work was supported by an NSF GRFP Fellowship as well as Core Centric Solutions.