Walmart is now selling LED Christmas lights. For a string of 60 lights at 4.5 watts and pretty much zero heat generation this is a great idea. As someone who moved to CFL bulbs many years ago, this is just the next step in progression. Amazon has some lights available online, but Walmart’s 60 light string is about $6. This is a great deal!
I figured that it will take quite a few years to pay for itself. Let’s say I run the lights 12 hours a day for 30 days. That’s 1.620 KWh or 16 cents using an average $0.10/KWh. Thanks to my Kill-A-Watt I show my old lights running at about half a watt per bulb. Of course, while in the store I thought this was closer to 1 watt per bulb, so the math in my head was off a little. Shame on me for not using my Kill-A-Watt first. That same 60 bulbs now would use 10.8 KWh or $1.08 for the season. This makes my net savings $0.98 per season per string.
If investing in new bulbs, the difference in cost is approximately $4 making it approximately 4 years until the bulbs pay for the premium in cost. If replacing old bulbs it would take approximatley 6 years to return the investment.
Now if you look at Amazon’s GE string at $28 you are talking closer to 20 years to return your cost. In that case, if that is your only option, it may be prudent to wait another year or two for prices to continue to fall.
The best thing about having LED lights on the tree? I don’t stress about the electricity and can enjoy leaving them on without constantly wanting to turn them off. The next best thing is that I know I’m doing the right thing for the environment. I’m an early adopter in green tech.
Entries (RSS)
I bought LED lights to replace my halogen MR16 bulbs the other day from a website called Eaglelight.com that I would recommend enthusiastically.. They had good service (good phone and email support), excellent FAQs so I knew what I needed, very competitive prices, and their shipping was fast and the LEDs were just as advertised. http://www.Eaglelight.com. A pleasure to deal with!