Really good kitchen lighting designs characteristically use a great deal of lighting - and we're not talking about putting a few extra roses on the ceiling Kitchen lighting requires all manner of different types of light to handle the requirements of many different zones. Just about the worst lighting solution for a kitchen is the use of bright fluorescent strip lights on the ceiling. Sure, they're unquestionably very bright - but cold, flat and likely to induce a headache in less time than it takes to soft boil an egg.

An obvious problem with central ceiling lights in a kitchen is that you inevitably create dark spots and are always standing in your own shadow. A common solution to this is to install banks of halogen down lights uniformly across the ceiling with additional lighting for worktops and hobs.

This certainly does the job fairly well, but is not without its own list of issues: halogen lights run at a very high temperature; they have a short lifespan; and they are without question the most costly solution as regards running kitchen lighting. A staggering ninety percent of the cost of halogen based lighting (and indeed, incandescent lighting in general) is the electricity they quite literally burn.

This one fact helps explain the growing popularity of cool, super energy efficient LED kitchen lights. For mains powered lighting you simply replace all existing GU10 halogen lamps with equivalent GU10 LED lights. For low voltage systems, you first replace existing 12 volt transformers with a smaller number of constant voltage 12 volt LED drivers (each can power a number of light fittings) then replace MR16 halogens with LED light bulbs.

There are 3 principal qualities to consider when evaluating LED spotlights, namely: luminosity (or brightness); color temperature (how blue and cool or yellow and warm the light seems); and light beam angle. Try to obtain as good a match as possible to the performance of your halogen lamps in these 3 areas.

We have become accustomed to rating brightness by wattage, but the rated wattage for an LED light bulb should be about 10% that of the equivalent normal incandescent or halogen bulb. So expect to replace a 35w halogen lamp with an LED rated 3w or greater, 50w requires a 5w LED and so on.

How cool or warm a light appears is graded according to "color temperature". LED lights come in a wide range of white color temperatures (not to mention actual "colors"), but historically it was easier to manufacture blue LEDs and hence many cheap LEDs exhibit a cold/bluish tint. However, if you specify warm white (technically a temperature below 3,500 Kelvins) you should get a fair approximation of the white light normally created by halogen lamps.

A narrow beam angle, say 45 degrees, makes any light appear tighter and more contained to a defined spot, whereas a much wider 120 degrees spreads the light out evenly, eliminating glare and "hot-spots". Quite possibly the best LED spot light currently available that acts as a straightforward halogen replacement is the Sharp Zenigata.

One of the key factors to how any artificial light appears is not so much the light itself as the surface it shines on. To warm things up, point spot lighting at warmly colored areas (terracotta tiles, natural wood or simply a warmly painted wall). Alternatively, create dramatic effects by for example directing blue LEDs at fairly dark surfaces - blue LEDs reflected off blue, green, granite and steel can look stunning.

Combine LED lights of varying characteristics with different textures and colours to produce a range of effects suited to individual zones in your kitchen. The are almost boundless possibilities, even before you get to playing with LED strip lighting to accent plinths, worktops, coving and more or less anything else that takes your fancy. As ever though, the best designs often emerge by limiting things to a handful or less of the most appealing ideas - but don't be surprised how stunning even small amount of LED kitchen lighting looks.