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Great strides are being made in LED technology on what feels like a daily basis. New LEDs are being developed and prepared for market at an exponentially growing rate. That’s great for consumers who are getting ever more efficient, brighter, light with better ability to render color at lower and lower prices. It also means the lights themselves are less expensive to operate and require very little if any maintenance.

Lumens is a measure of how much light a given source emits and watts are a measure of how much energy is consumed to create that light. Lumens per watt (LPW) then is a measure of the efficacy of that light source.

Refer to this article about getting better light with fewer lumens.

As we’ve discussed before, most people are used to associating watts with brightness but the change in technology and efficiency has rendered that less useful. You can get much more light (lumens) from fewer watts with LEDs so a 60W LED would be exponentially brighter than a 60W incandescent. SunLake’s 60W equivalent A19 (standard) light bulb produces 800 lumens while only consuming 9W of electricity to do so. That translates to roughly 89 LPW. The more lumens you can get per watt, the more efficient your lamp is.

Here’s a good guide to how many lumens you can expect to get from a standard LED bulb

We’ve also included a handy sheet that shows roughly what you should be expecting to get in terms of LPW for various kinds of bulbs. SunLake’s A19 produces better LPW than a typical target for that bulb type.

Of course efficiency isn’t the only metric to consider when purchasing LEDs for your home or business. In a subsequent article we’ll discuss other important factors that will also come into play when choosing the best lighting for your space.