LED TECHNOLOGY FOR BUILT AND ENVIRONMENT OF MALAYSIA

Increasing the country population and the trend of industrialization caused increasing Malaysia's electricity consumption. Light Emitting Diode (LED) is a new sustainable technology that has taken over the conventional lighting in built and environment in a few developed counties in the recent years. However, Malaysia is left behind in using this technology due to unfamiliarity of the decision makers on its advantages. The research is using a mixed qualitative and quantitative method for finding advantages of LED for lighting the streets and built and environment. A group of scholars traveled to Canada and USA and observed seven factories and interviewed 40 professional of LED and discussed use of this technology in the context of Malaysia. The result of those observation and interview is synthesized and presented in this paper. The conclusion of this research confirms despit all LED advantages, it is very high cost in term of replacement, primary investment and maintenance.