For all the joy they bring, Christmas lights have been a big energy hog for a long time. With each lighted, inflatable snow globe or 12-foot-tall Frosty the Snowman, the electric meter spins even faster.
The good news is that technology is offering us a way to continue our blinking, multi-hued testament to holiday cheer without straining the capacity of the electric grid. The answer is the LED, or light-emitting diode.
Maybe I’m stuck in the 20th century, but when did the day after Thanksgiving shift to the day after Halloween?
It wasn’t that long ago that the great American consumer didn’t start thinking about Christmas until the turkey was consumed and the pumpkin pie filled in whatever room was left in your belly. I already knew the holiday rush was on earlier this year when my stepson started mentioning how close Christmas was in mid-October. Still, I was surprised to see my neighbors’ house lit up with bright red Christmas lights Nov. 1.
Sentimentalities aside, the warm glow of the small bulbs triggered immediate thoughts of THIS SPACE and its goal of helping people conserve electricity, help the planet and save a little money along the way.
LEDs have been around since the 1920s and researchers have slowly, but steadily expanded their uses over the decades. I remember when I was in the fifth grade my mother bought me a digital Star Wars watch with red numbers produced by LEDs. That was 1977 and the original Star Wars.
Today, LEDs are being used in everything from household lighting to car tail lights. Their advantage is they last a really long time and take very little energy to operate.
One of the newer applications is decorative holiday lighting, and yes, Virginia, they do come in mini lights, icicles and snowflakes. I’ve even found an LED menorah display for my Jewish friends to use in celebrating Hanukah, the festival of lights.
Manufacturing specifications obviously vary from one company to another, but a typical set of LED holiday lights is rated to last for more than 50,000 hours and uses only about 4 watts of electricity per string. That’s 90 percent more efficient and 20 times more durable than traditional incandescent light bulbs!
For the Ebeneezer Scrooge penny pincher in all of us, here’s a note of full disclosure. LED lights do cost more up front.
During a quick Internet search, I found sets going from $18 a string to $33 a string depending on the color, shape and brand. That’s up to three times the purchase price of a traditional incandescent set.
Consider it an investment that pays you back in lower electricity bills. You’ll also save in the long run by not having to replace your light strands every other year when the second or third bulb burns out and you can’t find that loose spare that was rattling around loose somewhere next to the troll doll dressed up like Santa.
If you still think your current incandescent holiday extravagance isn’t that big a hit to the environment or that making the switch to LED bulbs won’t make much of a difference, think about what the US Department of Energy has to say.
The agency reports that if everyone in the country switched from conventional incandescent Christmas lights to LED lights this season, the annual energy savings would total 2 billion kilowatt-hours. That’s enough energy to power nearly 200,000 homes for an entire year.
And if you’re really looking for a green Christmas, you can even get a set of solar powered LED Christmas lights that generate all their own electricity.
So while you’re plotting your holiday décor this year, please, think before you blink.