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The organisers of an annual festival astounded attendees with a display of LED lights that was literally beyond belief.

For one week every three years, the streets and buildings of the historic city of Ghent in Belgium become the backdrop for stunning and ingenious installations, remarkable performances and beautiful events, all based on light, as part of the Lichtfestival (Light Festival).

An Incredible Energy-Efficient Installation

But the theme of ‘Happiness’ was taken to a whole new level by historic Italian family-owned lighting company Luminairia De Cagna, which provided a display that filled onlookers with reverential awe, blending Romanesque and Renaissance architecture, fashioned from wood and festooned with thousands of LED lights.

The company employed a colossal 55,000 of the LED lights to create a stunning cathedral-like effect that rose more than 90 feet into the Flemish sky, and literally stole the show, as you’ll see from this video from the event:

The audience were invited to walk through the immense 27.73 metre high ‘LED Cathedral’ as it became known, marvelling at its grandeur, yet remaining blissfully unaware that the seemingly profligate edifice was actually super energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly, given that the 55,000 LED lights consumed only 20 Kilowatts of electricity per hour.

To put this into perspective, the entire installation, lit to its fullest extent, cost just £3.10 GBP per hour to run!

Studies Bear Out Energy-Saving Claims

It’s not just breathtaking, artistic installations that can benefit from energy-efficient LED lighting either, as a 2007 feasibility study, undertaken by the Energy Saving Trust proves.

The study was tasked to investigate the installation of LED lighting in communal areas of social housing. It measured the performance, energy-saving potential and maintenance of light levels of more than 4,250 LED light fittings on 35 different sites in London.

Its findings were nothing short of sensational, stating that:

• Lighting levels increased by 100% over the first phase of the trial.
• LED lighting generated savings in excess of 3,372,058 Kilowatts per hour, the equivalent to the energy required to illuminate 5,788 typical UK homes for a year.
• A return on initial investment could be expected in under 2 years.
• The LED lights increased the colour temperature in buildings, giving a brighter light that was much closer to that of natural daylight. The old lighting systems having an average brightness of 3,344 Kelvin as opposed to the LEDs which provided a 5,086 reading.
• LEDs in the trial demonstrated an excellent sustained performance, maintaining a 93.6% lighting efficiency level over a six month period.

The report was concluded, stating “With the rising price of electricity, the high efficiencies of LED lighting technology will make it an even more attractive investment in the years ahead.”

You too will be able to increase the efficacy of your lighting, whilst simultaneously saving money, simply by switching to energy-efficient LED lighting for your home. LED light bulbs are perfect for the job, requiring 1/10^th of the electricity to produce the same number of Lumens of brightness, yet with a life-expectancy that’s in excess of 50,000 hours, or 17.12 years in real terms.