Ease of installation is a key benefit. Running 24V over 80-100meters is simple, no electrician required. The transformer, weather-proof of course, simply plugs into a power point. Branching off to specific areas of the garden is simple. The intensity of the lights can also vary, from less than one watt to 51W+ for whole area lighting. By choosing the right colour and angle of throw you can set up a wide range of displays in one garden area; leading the observer from one section to another.

Using 12 or 24V wiring ensures safety around the garden and water is high. Even when the LED is used it generates very little heat, so it is safe for children, pets and plants! The added benefit is LED lighting does not attract insects due to the lack of UV light. One of the bug bears of using halogen lights, a current favourite for garden lighting is heat and its related issue of globes blowing (due to the heat generated). LED lights offer long-life, over 50,000 hours or 11+ years at 12 hours a night, 7 days a week. This benefit alone is valuable in commercial settings. Maintenance is significantly reduced and while not often accounted for is usually much more than the existing installation. Naturally, this situation gets worse over time; with LED it’s virtually eliminated. When the lights are on the safety of users is high, with the increased awareness of providing lighting for security LEDs provide a much greater insurance policy that once installed, they stay lit. This is especially, if LED lighting is used for pathways. Power and energy costs are factors often not previously considered. Large power users, and this means most Local Councils, Community facilities and the like will be seriously examining ways to lower their energy costs and carbon footprint to meet Federal and State Government guidelines and regulations. LED lighting is an easy option to meet and exceed these targets. A win for all concerned. 

Overall LED lighting provides unrivalled opportunities to expand the landscape designer ability to add real value and pleasure in a garden, commercial or domestic. The economic argument in favour of LED lighting in commercial gardens is overwhelming and will continue to grow offering the significant advantages of saving in maintenance, safety, energy bills and low carbon footprint. For the most adventurous you can even used multi-spectrum LED to aid growing plants. 

To add that special dramatic finish to a night-time garden LED lighting offers the real flexibility to light it as the client wishes, altering its tone, strength and colour at the touch of a switch. LED lighting with a few simple guidelines can offer a versatile lighting experience.

Security made clearer with LED lighting

The on-going problem with many security lighting is lack of clarity and poor CCT images, or un-serviceable globes. These two problems are related to the technologies used. It’s true that lighting has become brighter and longer lasting, but and there is a big but. The new technologies come at a cost and it’s not just the initial investment or complaints from the neighbours and Local Councils because of the glare, or light pollution. Operating costs of 200W+ lamps are mounting up. Clients are taking power operating costs more seriously and in these difficult times want to ensure they are achieving savings on power and can claim to be more ‘carbon neutral’. This is difficult when relying on old technologies.  You may have heard of warm white, cool white, natural white and even Kelvin scores and be familiar with ordering lamps by their wattage. But what does all this mean and how can it matter to security lighting?  

Let’s take the ‘seeing’ problem, it’s all to do with how the ‘eye’ sees, or more accurately responds to light waves how our brain then processes them into images. We are all aware that daylight changes colour throughout the day, from the brightness of morning and noon light to the softer warmer colours of late afternoon and sunset. In technical terms the light spectrum has shifted from the ‘blue’ end of the spectrum (400-500nm) at noon to ‘red’ (600-700nm) in the afternoon. The cones and rods in the eyes respond differently to these wave lengths.

Why should this be a problem? To see clearly we need daylight, called cool white in LED terms with a Kelvin (K) score of 5000+, in contrast warm white is often between 2300K and 3500K. The ‘blue shifted’ light is better seen and ideal for security.    ‘Red shifted’ = warm, ideal for candle lit dinners and sandstone Sydney buildings and ‘Blue shifted’ = cool, ideal for reading and seeing CCT images. 

The ‘blue shift’ can be specified with LED lighting, i.e. cool white with nominated K readings.

As we age we also lose our ability to process warm white effectively. We literally need brighter lights to read/see. This has implications for lighting of pathways, walkways and car parks.

An example of a car park, one with LED and the other high pressure sodium (on right).

LED Lighting in tunnels and street lighting produces daylight style light for ease of sight, improving safety and giving much longer maintenance life-cycles >50,000 hours.

Other practical benefits of LED lighting, apart from the 80%+ power saving are much less heat, you can touch an LED without burning your hand, shock and dust resistance, drop them and they still work, weather proof ( up to IP68) and no UV light is produced, i.e. no attraction to insects, is recyclable. Plus high power factor (>0.9) performance, a further incentive for power saving. A better understanding of lumens, and how the ‘eye’ perceives light in ‘brightness’ and spectrum will lead to better outside lighting options being considered. LED’s are well positioned to take advantage of this understanding. They offer a wider spectrum of colour to respond to photoptic and scotopic and mesopic sensitivities of the eye.

LED’s produce high lumens per watt. In general this exceeds 100 lumens per watt and 150 lumens per watt products are already on the market. Light output is now more than adequate for security situations; with the added benefit of removing ‘light pollution’ and minimising glare issues. Overall LED lighting in security situations will become more frequently used, as they are already for traffic lights and cars, for outside building illumination, offering ease of installation, significantly reduced  operating costs (a factor to consider in the future carbon trading environment), much longer maintenance cycles, and improved clarity of images from CCT. The LED technology is proven in overseas applications and well worth considering for Australian applications.