The ROI of LED: Results from our Christmas Light Energy Savings Experiment
4 Comments Posted by Chad Norman December 31st, 2008 .
After years of guilt and frustration from using old school incandescent Christmas lights, I finally broke down and bought a set of LED lights for our tree. LED lights use 90% less energy than traditional bulbs, burn safer by producing less heat, and last for years instead of months.
Having voluntarily made the switch, I was able to enlist my old lights in an energy savings experiment. I put the same number of regular and LED lights outside on the bushes, and inside on the tree. Then I used my Kill A Watt usage monitor to get some data on exactly how much energy and money each set of 480 bulbs would burn every 24 hours.
The bottom line: My LED lights used 85% less energy than the traditional lights, and cost only 5¢ per day to operate. This saved me $10.75 over the 5-week period (LEDs cost $1.95; Incadescent cost $12.70) Not bad!
This experiment proved to me that LED lights truly are more efficient, and got me excited about the future. A big chunk of U.S. energy is used on lighting, and if we could systematically reduce that by 85%-95% the impacts are clear. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more LED technology in the near future – even the tree in Francis Marian Park had LED lights this year!
So if you want to green up your holidays, definitely check out LED lights…I’m happy I did! If you want to check your own energy usage, you can pick up a Kill A Watt EZ at Amazon.com, or do the calculations yourself. You can also purchase LED lights online, and definitely check the local big box stores for deals this time of year.
Loading ...
I finally decided to see if I could lower my electric bill and I bought LED lightbulbs to replace my old incandescent bulbs. Yes! My electric bill is much lower! Also, I found a great website called LEDinsider.com that I would recommend enthusiastically. They had good service (good phone and email support), great FAQs so I knew what I needed, and competitive prices; also, their shipping was fast and the LEDs were as good as advertised. http://www.LEDInsider.com. Excellent online shopping experience.
Where can I recycle my Christmas tree lights that no longer work?
Thanking you in advance.
I think your best bet would be to take them to a place the recycles electronic waste. Some businesses do this, but I would just go to a Charleston County drop site like Bees Ferry Landfill.
With fast development of LED lighting industry, the efficiency of LED can be over 100 lumens per watt in the market. In the lab, efficiency of LED is over 200 lumens per watt. It’s 2 times higher than the efficiency of CFL, and 10 times higher when comparing to incandescent bulbs.