Will LED Christmas Lights Really Save You Money? Posted by Tom Coffee In Green Home improvements With the rising cost of just about everything, the sagging economy and the growing interest in “green” energy and materials across the country, it’s no wonder that LED Christmas lights are becoming more and more popular each year. This year a number of cities and companies have boasted how “green” they were by switching to LED Christmas lights instead of incandescent Christmas lights that they’ve used for years. LED or Incandescent Christmas Lights? The big question: are LED Christmas lights really that much better in the long run? Will switching to them save you money and save the environment? The answer isn’t quite as clear‐cut as you may think. Because there are thousands of different Christmas light configurations and options, both in LED Christmas light and regular Christmas lights, I decided to focus on two similar light strands, both made by the same company. They are: The GE 100 LED Christmas light set versus The GE 100 Mini Light Christmas light set Both sets are from Amazon.com, both sets are made by GE and I chose them because they had the exact same number of “bulbs” and because these two particular sizes of bulb are generally very popular. Cost to Buy LED Christmas Lights vs Regular Christmas Lights In our example the LED Christmas lights cost just about double that of the regular lights. The LED lights are selling for $26.99 and the regular Christmas lights are selling for $13.99 (which seems high in my experience). If you go to different stores you’ll see a wide range of prices. In some of my shopping around I found a strand of 60 regular Christmas lights for $2.99 and a strand of 70 LED Christmas lights for $9.99, which is nearly three times as much. In our example six strands of LED Christmas lights would cost $161.94 to buy. It would only cost $83.94 to buy the regular Christmas lights, which means there is a savings of $78 when going with the regular Christmas lights. P.O. Bo x 35 5
• Black sbu rg ,
Virg in ia 24 063 -0 355
• 5 40 -44 3 -99 66 • www.wech ec ken e rgy .c om • wech eck ene rgy@wec hec kene rgy .co m
2
Clearly, LED Christmas lights cost more initially, but the big difference in costs come in paying for the electricity to run them. Cost to Run LED Christmas Lights vs Regular Christmas Lights Let’s take a look at how you can calculate how much it will cost to run your Christmas lights. To do this we’ll compare the two above sets and we’ll need to know a couple things. We’ll need to know the wattage of each set, we’ll need to know how much we pay for electricity and we’ll need to know how long we’re going to run them. To get your approximate electricity price, check your electric bill. To figure out the wattage of your Christmas lights, or anything else, you can often check the original packaging or pick up a Kill A Watt Energy Meter . They’re actually a lot of fun and a good way to help figure out how much electricity your appliances and other household items are really eating up. I’m going to keep this basic and not get into the millions of details with wattage, energy and power measurement. Essentially our calculation will look like this: Watts x Time x Cost = Total Cost to Run Christmas Lights Let’s think about using a 60 watt light bulb for 1 hour. My electrical bill lists my cost for 1 Kilowatt Hour (1000 watts) at approximately 19 cents. (60 watts/1000) x 1 hour = .06 Kilowatts .06 Kilowatts x $.19 per KWH = $.0114 So it costs me a little over 1 penny to run a 60 watt bulb for 1 hour. Doesn’t sound like much, but when you start considering lots of 60 watt bulbs run for multiple hours it all adds up pretty quickly. One 60 watt bulb costs 11 cents to run for 10 hours. Now let’s do the same electricity cost comparison with our Christmas lights. We’ll use the same cost of electricity and we’ll use the specifications from the Amazon page to see that the LED Christmas lights use 8 watts and the incandescent Christmas lights use 48 watts. LED Christmas Lights: 8 watts x 1 hour x $.19 per KWH = $.00152 After 10 hours it would cost about 1.5 cents to run LED Christmas lights. Regular Christmas Lights: 48 watts x 1 hour x $.19 per KWH = $.00912 After 10 hours it would cost about 9 cents to run regular Christmas lights. So the regular lights cost 9 cents to run an hour and the LED Christmas lights only cost 1.5 cents to run an hour. That’s a big difference but still not much money. Let’s now assume we have 6 strands of lights and we run those lights 5 hours a day for about 30 days in December. The result: Energy Check • P.O. Box 355 • Blacksburg, Virginia 24063-0355 •• 540-443-996 • www.wecheckenergy.com • wecheckenergy@wecheckenergy.com
3
LED Christmas Lights: $.00152 x 6 strands x 5 hours x 30 days = $1.37 Regular Christmas Lights: $.00912 x 6 strands x 5 hours x 30 days = $8.21 So it our example it cost $6.84 cents more during the holiday season to run our regular lights. But remember our regular Christmas lights cost us $78 less to buy. If everything were to magically stay the same that means we’d have to use the same LED Christmas lights for about 12 years to actually make up the money in energy costs that paid out in our initial purchase (12 x $6.84 = $82.08). Regular Christmas Lights LED Christmas Lights Initial Cost (6 strands) $83.94 $161.94 1 Strand, 1 Hour Cost to Run $.09 $.015 30 days/5 Hours per day Cost to Run $8.21 $1.37 Total Cost for 1 Christmas $92.15 $163.31 The Durability of LED Christmas Lights vs Regular Christmas Lights LED Christmas light packages often advertise how much more durable LED Christmas lights are over the small incandescent bulbs and that claim in largely true when it comes to the bulb. You can hit an LED pretty hard and not break it, but those regular Christmas lights can crunch like potato chips if you aren’t careful. Beyond that, both types of Christmas lights are still mostly composed of similar thin wires thin rubber insulation. You can just as easily cut or nick the wire in a strand of LED Christmas lights as you can with regular Christmas lights. I’ve also noticed that newer LED Christmas light packaging mentions that you can connect together many, many more strands of LED Christmas lights off one another than with regular Christmas lights. Some older LED Christmas light boxes still advise only connecting “3 or less” strands together. Unfortunately, I don’t think many people actually follow that advise very closely. LED Christmas lights also like to advertise their long life. In our example the LED Christmas light set advertises a “20,000 hour average life”. Let’s go back and assume we’re using our Christmas lights for 30 days at 5 hours a Energy Check • P.O. Box 355 • Blacksburg, Virginia 24063-0355 •• 540-443-996 • www.wecheckenergy.com • wecheckenergy@wecheckenergy.com
4
day. That’s 150 hours in a single Christmas season. That means that the LEDs on your LED Christmas lights will last 153 Christmas seasons. That’s a bit ridiculous and clearly a meaningless advertising ploy. I’m guessing that the wires between the LED lights will disintegrate in that time and in 150 years there will probably be some new Christmas light technology that you’ll want to take advantage of. So while 20,000 hours sounds great, it’s a bit overblown. Overall, though, LED Christmas lights will have a tendency to last longer than regular Christmas light strands. The Look of LED Christmas Lights vs Regular Christmas Lights This is purely a subjective measure but it’s an important one. Cheaper LED Christmas lights tend to be a little less bright than their incandescent counterparts, though some people actually prefer that. A lot of the new LED Christmas lights are actually very bright now and give regular Christmas lights a good run for their money when it comes to visibility. Many people like the colors of LED Christmas lights, but a lot of people think the “white” Christmas light version of LEDs is a “cool” color compared to the warmth of a white mini incandescent Christmas light bulb. That makes sense, given that LED lights are actually cool to the touch while regular Christmas lights, even the mini ones, can actually get quite hot. LED Christmas lights also have an issue with “flickering” due to the way they are designed. It gets a little complex, but basically plug‐in LED Christmas lights in the US appear to flicker because they are really blinking on and off very quickly, like a strobe light. Regular LED Christmas lights here in the United States flicker 60 times per second. Some people can notice this more than others. Some people complain of getting headaches while looking at LED Christmas lights while some people can’t see an discernible flicker at all. You can get around the LED Christmas light flicker by buying LED Christmas lights that are advertised as “flicker free” or sometimes “full wave.” They still flicker, but they flicker much faster (120 times per second) than the human eye can detect. This is often done with something called a rectifier, which is sometimes used in stores to hide any potential flickering in the LED Christmas lights on display. Almost all commercial and professional LED Christmas light sets are “rectified” to remove any trace of a flicker. These rectified LED Christmas lights are flicker free and appear a little bit brighter than regular LED Christmas lights. They also use a little more energy, but they are still much more energy efficient than incandescent Christmas lights. Some people think the LED colors are actually a bit “richer” and really like way they stand out. There are lots of online debates about the color of LED Christmas lights when compared to regular Christmas lights. It’s all personal preference, really. The “Green” Factor of LED Christmas Lights vs Regular Christmas Lights So which type of Christmas light is more green? It’s hard to say for sure, and here’s why: LED Christmas lights certain use less electricity and using less energy (and burning less carbon) is always a good thing from an environmental standpoint. A lot of environmental websites like to claim that LED Christmas are good for the environment, but I’m a little skeptical when you look at the big picture. LED Christmas lights are basically made Energy Check • P.O. Box 355 • Blacksburg, Virginia 24063-0355 •• 540-443-996 • www.wecheckenergy.com • wecheckenergy@wecheckenergy.com
5
of plastic and that newly manufactured plastic, like almost everything else, they will eventually end up in a landfill one day. I have no idea how “green” the manufacture process is for LED Christmas lights. I can’t imagine it is much different from any other plastic product. And those old but perfectly functional incandescent Christmas lights you’re replacing with your new LED lights? Where are they going to end up? Final Cost Analysis of Christmas Lights Yes, LED Christmas lights use less energy and cost less to run, but their cost savings are negated by their much higher price. It’s difficult to make up that cost just in energy savings unless you’re going to use your Christmas lights all year. LED Christmas lights are more durable than regular Christmas lights, but they’re still made of the same cheap plastic parts and cheap wiring as regular incandescent lights. If you are really serious about Christmas decorations and want to buy some professional Christmas lights that you can’t find in the local Wal‐Mart, then you’ll want to probably look online. There are some specialty stores, but many of them actually sell through Amazon.com which now offers a pretty reasonable selection of commercial grade LED Christmas lights . Ultimately using LED Christmas lights is a personal decision which may not necessarily save you any real money, but will indeed save some energy when using them. Have a great time decorating your home this year and putting up those Christmas lights, whatever kind they are! Energy Check • P.O. Box 355 • Blacksburg, Virginia 24063-0355 •• 540-443-996 • www.wecheckenergy.com • wecheckenergy@wecheckenergy.com