[Price & cost of operation comparison from Dept of Energy towards end of article]

Saving Money with LED Lighting (especially for Christmas!)

Strings of Christmas lights made from light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are fast gaining in popularity and availability. This is good news for the homeowner who wants to save energy and money while still lighting up the house for the holidays.

Benefits of LED Lights

When compared to conventional incandescent lighting, LED bulbs have numerous benefits.
- Energy efficiency: LED lights are up to 90 percent more efficient than incandescent lights.

- Long lasting: LED lights consist of solid-state construction, making them sturdier and more resistant to damage than conventional lights. According to the Department of Energy, the best white LEDs have been found to have a useful life of about 35,000 hours, or four years of continuous operation. Also, when one light goes out on a string, the others stay lit.
- Safety: The epoxy plastic that encapsulates the LED bulbs is cool to the touch.

Why are White LED Lights More Expensive than Colored?

White light is composed of several different colors, and white LED lights must use several different color semiconductors.

That’s why they cost more than single-color (single-semiconductor) bulbs. 

In many other applications, white and blue LED lighting will cost the most with reds and oranges being the cheapest, such as police vehicle lighting.

 Cost Comparison of LED vs. Incandescent (or traditional Christmas lights)

A good strand of LED lights, such as GE or Phillips will run you about $7.00 – $9.00 for a 50 or 60 bulb string, while traditional, incandescent Christmas lights will only cost you about $3.00 for a quality string.

The Department of Energy tested LED holiday lights and compared them to regular incandescent lights to see exactly how much it would cost to run them 12 hours per day for 40 days. Here’s what they found:

Type of Light

Standard C-7

(125 bulbs, 4 watts each) Cost: $25.13

Mini incandescent lights

(300 bulbs, 0.4 watts each) Cost: $6.03

LED holiday lights

(280 bulbs, 0.04 watts each) Cost: $0.56

Make sure you pay attention to the number of bulbs in this study. The LED lights were on a strand with a total of 280 bulbs, which is only 20 fewer bulbs than the mini incandescent lights, and yet they only used .56 cents of electricity over 40 days. That’s a significant savings over the regular bulbs.

Also, realize this is the average cost of leaving the lights on for twelve (12!) hours EVERY single day for over a month!  If you were to reduce that from sun down until the time you go to bed – let’s say, roughly 6 hours – then you’ve paid just about $0.50 to run multiple strings of LED Christmas lights for 2.5 months.  From Thanksgiving well into the New Year compared to $25, $40, even $50 for traditional Christmas lights.

Also, a great item to look into are LED lightbulbs for your regular lamps, ceiling fans, etc.  The lower powered ones make great mood lighting or provide just enough to light up a room without making it “bright”, if that makes sense.  The higher rated ones – and I say that sparingly as they are rated at only 1 watt or less – can provide near halogen / compact fluorescent lighting levels for a fraction of the energy cost and generated heat.

 Another application to use these are for camping or those with RV’s.  Traditional lighting will drain batteries very quickly, while LED lighting can provide weeks of lighting on a single, small battery.   The sky is the limit!

Composed from multiple sources plus original content.