EcoVida: Are LED Christmas Lights Cost Effective?

Decorating with LED lights has become pretty popular this holiday season, but just how much energy and money are we saving with this new technology?

Some El Pasoans are getting rid of their old incandescent Christmas lights in favor of the new LEDs for their holiday decorations this year.

“Well, we were converting because we wanted to get rid of the old lights,” said Adelyn Baray, who recently converted her front-yard Christmas lights display to LED. “They cost a lot of money, and replacing the little bulbs was expensive and it was a lot of hassle.”

But is it really worth replacing all the lights on your tree?

Let’s say your Christmas tree has mini-bulb-type strands of incandescent lights, which you want to replace with LED strands. With average use, your energy bill will only drop $0.35 per strand per month. So while being energy efficient, replacing mini-bulbs is not cost efficient since the LED strands can cost up to three times as much as traditional incandescent lights.

If your tree has the larger 1950s-style incandescent C9 bulbs and you replace them with the LED version, you will see more savings, about $4.85 in energy bill savings per month per strand. That means in just a few months, these larger bulbs can pay for themselves.

While replacing your larger bulbs can actually save you money, the smaller the bulb, the smaller the savings, and the longer it takes to recoup the initial higher cost of LED lights.

Even though LED bulbs might cost more, they do provide peace of mind.

LEDs use less energy, which means up to 20 strands can be plugged into a single outlet, depending on the wattage. This means using LED lights decreases your chance to overload circuits.

It’s important to remember that going green sometimes means spending some extra green.