Solid state devices such as LEDs are subject to very limited wear and tear if operated at low currents and at low temperatures. Many of the LED’s produced in the 1970s and 1980s are still in service today. Typical lifetimes quoted are 25,000 to 100,000 hours.
By comparison, typical florescent tubes depending on whether they are High-Frequency or Tri-Phosphor are between 10,000 and 18,000 hours.
LED’s also maintain consistent light output even in cold temperatures, unlike traditional lighting methods.
So sticking with the supermarket analogy from earlier, LED technology would be a perfect replacement in areas such as freezer lighting. As LED’s do not generate as much heat as incandescent bulbs, they are an energy-efficient technology to use in applications such as freezers.
The extensive life and energy efficiency of LED technology is what people offset the initial higher cost of implementing this lighting against; if you can install a light which uses only 20% of the energy of an incandescent and lasts 15 times longer, you will recover that initial outlay in no time at all.
Another point to consider is that the life of LED’s is not affected by switching unlike other lighting technologies. If you had an RGB LED lamp that switched between the three primary colours, the life of that lamp effectively increases from 100,000 hours to 300,000 hours as each of the coloured LED’s is only on for a third of the time.
