Compared to the Traditional Tungsten Halogen Lighting, LED’s Provide Museums with Energy and Maintenance Savings.
Additional LED Advantages Over Tungsten Include a
Lack of Ultraviolet and Infrared EmissionsWhich Can Cause Deterioration of Priceless Artworks.
Museum lighting is a constant struggle between providing visitors with the light they need to properly view displays and protecting priceless art from the damage and fading that lighting can cause … and doing it all in the most cost efficient manner. Museums nationwide including the Smithsonian, Getty and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles are currently evaluating MSi LED lighting for its potential to provide both safe and effective lighting while delivering huge savings in both energy and maintenance cost.
“Recent advancements in LED lighting technology now allow them to provide accurate color discrimination without the harmful effects caused by ultraviolet and infrared emissions making them ideal for sensitive museum lighting,” said Bruce Johnson, MSi managing partner. “These improvements will now allow museums to enjoy the savings that LED’s provide along with a proper light that will not cause damage to art the way that traditional tungsten halogen might.”
LED lighting offers many advantages over tungsten halogen lighting traditionally found in museums – chief among them are cost savings in energy and maintenance. LED lights consume far less energy and produce almost no heat meaning reduced cost for both electricity and cooling. Museums will also realize savings in the costs of light replacement. A typical tungsten halogen light burning 12 hours a day will need replacement every four months. The equivalent LED light burning 12 hours a day can last up to 13 years. Durable LED lighting can also withstand the constant repositioning that is required by a museums changing exhibitions.
Further advantages of LED lighting include its ability to be dimmed without any shift in its color spectrum. This allows museums to increase or lower lighting for changing exhibitions without altering the color temperature of the light being produced. LED’s also provide a more focused light without any of the irregularities that occur when the tungsten halogen light passes through the lamp’s lens.
But perhaps the biggest advantage to using MSi LED lighting in museums is its contribution to the preservation of the art that is housed there. Materials such as paints and fabrics can suffer damage and fading as a result of the ultraviolet and infrared light waves that are produced by tungsten halogen lighting. The light emitted by LED’s contains neither of these harmful wave lengths that can result in damage to priceless works of art.
“The color rendering index of our newest LED’s will now meet or exceed that of the traditional tungsten halogen lighting,” added Johnson. “That means that museums can now realize all the cost savings and preservation benefits of LED lighting while allowing visitors to view objects and colors the way the original artists intended them to be seen.”
