Do UV lamps consume a lot of electricity? Not really. The truth is that UV lights don't require a great deal of electricity. In fact, they are quite dim, so they don't need a lot of power. On average, running a germicidal UV lamp in your HVAC system costs around 7 cents per day.
It depends on the wattage of the bulb. A 100 W UV bulb consumes approximately 0.5 kWh of electricity per year. So yes, it does use some electricity, but it's still a good investment. Therefore, if you want your UV bulb to be as cost-effective as possible, we suggest that you look for one that is an “Energy Star” product. Wall plug efficiency (WPE) is often used as a measure of the performance of a UV lamp, comparing electrical input power with UVC output power to measure the efficiency of the light source.
UVA bulbs emit wavelengths between 315 and 400 nm, while visible bulbs emit wavelengths between 400 and 700 nm. A configuration with optimal UV LED efficiency in a water treatment system will be the first to compete with Hg UV technology and will retain its advantage as the performance of UV LEDs improves. At the design extremes, the UV LED system uses much more energy to achieve the same result as the UV Hg system: 1.8 kW compared to 0.93 kW. Typhon has developed an easy-to-use data acquisition and analysis tool (DAAT) that will collect the available flow and UVT data used by the installed UV system and, in addition, will monitor the energy consumption of the installed system using computed tomography clamps. This wavelength is between 290 and 315 nm, which is why UV bulbs are often referred to as “UVC” or “UVB”. Municipal UV LEDs have already been installed on 3 continents: Metawater and Aquisense in Japan and the US.
USA, respectively, and the first commercial installation of a Typhon UV LED system in the United Kingdom. The investigation of this installed UV LP Hg system was of special interest to the end user due to the perception of a constant overdose and, therefore, of inefficient compliance with the UV disinfection requirement. When UVT radiation increases, water quality improves and less energy is needed to reach the UV dose. In addition, the fact that the UV LED system follows both profiles indicates that the UV LED system reduces and adjusts much faster. The question then arises: as LED efficiency continues to improve, when will a UV LED system be able to compete with a Hg UV system in terms of energy consumption? At that time, it was understood that the technology was not yet ready to face this challenge and that significant advances were needed both in LED technology and in the design of the reactor to create the right environment for a UV LED system to compete with traditional low pressure (LP) and medium pressure (MP) Hg lamps. Typhon is now starting a program to explore a wider range of site conditions and make comparisons with a wider range of Hg UV systems to help water companies understand their existing UV assets and how adopting UV LEDs could help them move towards a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly UV disinfection solution while supporting their campaign towards net zero carbon emissions. For many members of the UV water treatment industry, UV LED is still considered a dream for the future, as it is not yet ready for applications on a municipal scale due to its low power and low efficiency compared to currently available LEDs. The objective of this research was to collect enough data to be able to compare, using real-time flow and UVT data, between the actual energy consumption of an installed Hg UV system and the calculated energy consumption of a Typhon B-310 UV LED system.
