Lately, a great deal of the discussion around improving general lighting has been focused on LED. This focus is certainly not unwarranted, but it may have come at the expense of a few alternative options that may be better suited for certain applications. One of those options is induction lighting. If you’re lighting a commercial or industrial space and looking for a “set it and forget it” way to save energy, induction is definitely worth considering.

How Induction Works-

Functionally, induction works in a very similar manner to a typical fluorescent bulb. The primary difference is that induction sources do not use electrodes to ignite the lamp. Instead, fluorescent induction bulbs have a large electromagnet, which is usually wrapped around one segment of the bulb. This serves as an induction coil. There is also a pellet of amalgam (composed of solid mercury) inside of the bulb. The induction coil produces a strong magnetic field which travels through the glass and excites the mercury atoms in the amalgam. The mercury atoms emit UV light, which is converted to visible light by the phosphor coating inside of the tube.

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