Light globe comparison guide

Check out our comparison guide to see how different types of light globes compare in terms of how much energy they consume, how much light they produce per watt, and what other factors you need to consider.

  

Different globes consume vastly different amounts of electricity to produce the similar amounts of light.

How to compare light bulbs

Comparing different lighting technologies really is a case of comparing apples and oranges – or at least Granny Smith apples with Red Delicious. Sure, they’re all light bulbs, but there’s a lot more to consider when upgrading from, say, a standard incandescent globe to a new, energy saving compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) or LED globe.

Efficiency and running costs

Overall, traditional incandescent light bulbs are by far the most inefficient lighting option – they produce much more heat and consume more power than CFLs. They also require between 40 and 100W for applications that could use a 20W CFL. The higher the wattage, the higher the running cost.

The light output from a 20W CFL isn’t the same as that from a 20W incandescent. Rather, a 20W CFL would be the equivalent of a 100W incandescent (roughly 20%). Halogen lights on the other hand, while not generally used as an interchangeable substitute for traditional incandescent globes anyway, use about 60% as much power to produce the same lumen output. LEDs consume much less than other technologies.

Unfortunately there is no easy ‘rule of thumb’ to convert wattages between the various technologies (unless you have an amazing head for figures), but here is a handy table to use as a very rough guide to wattage conversion for a specified lumen output. If you have an idea of how much light different incandescent bulbs produce, this may help you to understand how much other types produce.