It doesn't matter if you live in a home with a modern kitchen that has all the fancy upgrades, or one that just has a single overhead light in the center of the room. If you're not using the latest generation of energy-efficient bulbs, it's time for a lighting upgrade.
"Kitchen lighting has made great strides in the past couple of years, not just from a design standpoint, but with regards to energy efficiency. So upgrades are definitely worth looking into," says Joe Rey-Barreau, education consultant for the American Lighting Association (ALA) and an associate professor at the
"Lighting manufacturers are spending a considerable amount of time, and dedicating a lot of resources to developing fixtures capable of using more energy-efficient light sources than the standard incandescent," Rey-Barreau says. "And it's no coincidence that this trend is growing in popularity at a time when energy costs are on the rise," he says.
As recently as two years ago, the only fixtures available for the kitchen that used the most energy-efficient light sources available today - fluorescents and Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) - were not aesthetically pleasing. In today's marketplace, however, decorative energy-efficient fixtures are available in every product category, whether you're looking for something traditional, modern or artsy.
As for concerns people may have about the quality of light given off by compact fluorescents and LEDs, Rey-Barreau says that "while in the past color rendering may have been a concern, it is no longer a problem. Consumers can rest assured the quality closely matches that of incandescents."
Today's advancements are quite impressive, but what does the future hold? Rey-Barreau expects the lighting industry to work hard at getting more products on the shelves that use the most energy-efficient technology developed to date – LEDs.
New LED undercabinet lighting and LED landscape lighting to be introduced in September by Lighting4sale, an ALA member.
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