Plug-and-Play LED Replacement Tubes

Electric lighting accounts for 21% of the energy used in the commercial sector, and most businesses use fluorescent tubes as their light source. LEDs use 40% less energy than fluorescent lights for the same amount of light production. Unfortunately, LED tubes can’t simply be placed into fluorescent fixtures. Well, they couldn’t, until now.

First a little background: A fluorescent light requires a high start-up voltage in order to overcome its large initial resistance. A fluorescent fixture includes a ballast - an inductor, similar to the ignition coil in a car - to produce this high starting voltage. Once the light is on its resistance decreases and the ballast simply prevents large changes in current, in effect, regulating the current through the tube.