Save money with LED lights

One quick and easy change that will save you money this Christmas - and many Christmas seasons to come - is to change your standard twinkle lights to light-emitting diode (LED) lights. LED's use 75 to 90 percent less electricity than standard incandescents, and they're 90% more efficient than their tungsten counterparts. They’re perfect for strings of holiday lights, because they don’t get hot so if you have an artifical tree it won't off gas as much and if you have a live tree it is less hazardous. And most LEDs  last 100,000 hours. They’re made with less nasty chemicals and come in all kinds of festive colors and shapes. They are now easy to find at hardware stores and most big box department stores.

Need more convincing? The U.S. Department of Energy recently posted this cost savings analysis on its blog:

Although the initial purchase price of LED light strings might higher, consider the cost of running each type of light string for 12 hours per day for 40 days:

Type of Light
Electricity Cost *

Standard C-7 (125 bulbs, 4 watts each)

$25.13

Mini incandescent lights (300 bulbs, 0.4 watts each)

$6.03

LED holiday lights (280 bulbs, 0.04 watts each)

$0.56

*Assumes an electricity price of 10.5 cents per kilowatt hour (Annual Energy Outlook 2008 Residential Average).

Learn more about the advantages of LED holiday lights on EnergySavers.gov, and visit the ENERGY STAR® site to find manufacturers and brands.

Heather Levin, author of The Greenest Dollar blog, did her own testing to prove the cost savings. "The LED lights I bought were $9, and there were 60 lights on the string," she said via her blog. "I tested them last night using my Kill A Watt and had an amazing discovery. After being left on for 12 hours, they only used .02 kilowatts of electricity. This means that, for this strand, it would take 25 days to use 1 kw of electricity. And, that’s if they were left on 24 hours a day."

What can you do with your old lights once you have converted to LEDs lights. Well, if you're really crafty, you can us them instead of ribbon when wrapping presents, but a more practical solution is to recycle them. Recycling lights is a more responsible option than sending them to Goodwill, enabling someone else to burn up the ozone. Light manufacturer Holiday LEDS is offering a recycling program - people who send in their old lights before Jan. 31, 2010, will have a chance to receive a free set of LED lights or a 10 percent discount coupon on future purchases. For more information, including recycling contest rules, visit http://www.holidayleds.com/ for the scoop.

Other links of interest:

• http://eere.typepad.com/energysavers/2008/12/tips-to-save-energy-during-the-holidays.html
• http://www.thegreenestdollar.com/2009/10/save-money-with-led-holiday-lights/
• http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1568660,00.html
• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/29/HOFKU25SP.DTL
• http://www.greendaily.com/2007/12/30/recycle-your-christmas-tree-lights/

Thanks to Keely Farris, CUMC Green Team member, for contributing this article.