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Change to LED lighting

Category

Home Energy

Impact

Cost

$$

Did you know that lighting accounts for about ten percent of the electricity use in the average U.S. home? Incandescent bulbs waste a good deal of energy; a full 90% of their energy is released as heat, which is why regular light bulbs get so hot. LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) use up to 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs. Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs also waste energy when compared to LEDs.

LEDs are inexpensive, last up to 25 times as long as incandescent bulbs and give excellent light! They come in a wide variety of styles, shapes, and sizes for many applications, including both indoor and outdoor lighting, and are often compatible with dimmers, motion detectors, and daylight sensors. The earliest LEDs were all a very harsh shade of white, which many people found offensive. Now they come in a variety of shades and a soft white is the most popular for indoor LED lighting.

So LEDS can save a lot on your electric bill. If you replace old light bulbs with LEDs, you can save $100 over the life of the bulb. If you have a free energy audit from Energy New England (available to Concord residents who heat with oil, electricity or propane) or MassSave (available to Concord residents who heat with natural gas from National Grid), they will replace your incandescent bulbs with LEDs free of charge. And if you purchase LEDs, they only cost $1 – $2 each for standard bulbs. 

And what about the planetary budget? If every household replaced just one light bulb with an LED we would save enough energy to light two million homes for a whole year and we would also prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that of taking 550,000 vehicles off the road.

In 2019, LEDs were only used in 22% of fixtures in Massachusetts! Can we reach 50% use of these great bulbs in our community this year alone? Let’s find out!

And how about those Christmas lights? In the season of dispelling the dark with the light, let’s make sure the light counts! LED Christmas lights don’t burn out, like other bulbs. They just get dimmer over the years, so you don’t have to fuss with replacing bulbs and fuses. Just plug them in, and they’ll light up reliably year after year. They also don’t get hot to the touch, so they’re a lot safer, too, to use around your Christmas tree, wreaths and garlands. And they won’t send your holiday electric bills sky high — even if you tend to go a bit crazy with the Christmas lights 🙂

Steps to Take

First things first, not all LEDs are the same. Light bulbs that have earned the ENERGY STAR have undergone extensive testing to ensure they will save energy and perform as promised.  To qualify for ENERGY STAR, LED lighting products must pass a variety of tests to prove that the products will display the following characteristics:

  • Brightness is equal to or greater than existing lighting technologies (incandescent or fluorescent) and light is well distributed over the area
  • Light output remains constant over time, only decreasing towards the end of the rated lifetime (at least 35,000 hours or 12 years based on use of 8 hours per day).
  • Excellent color quality. The shade of white light appears clear and consistent over time.
  • Efficiency is as good as or better than fluorescent lighting.
  • Light comes on instantly when turned on.
  • No flicker when dimmed.
  • No off-state power draw. The fixture does not use power when it is turned off, with the exception of external controls, whose power should not exceed 0.5 watts in the off state.

Bad design can lead to a wide range of problems, some immediately observable and some not. Poorly designed products often come with exaggerated claims while failing to deliver on the quality specifications above.

If you want to purchase them on your own, make a list of bulbs, their wattages and types (standard, reflector, 3-way, fluorescent replacement, etc).  If you can’t change all of them at once and need to prioritize, go through your house and make a list of the bulbs that are on over 1 hour a day (typically less than half the bulbs) and have not yet been replaced by LEDs.

LED bulbs are available at any hardware or lighting store.  MassSave buys down the cost of many light bulbs at participating hardware stores, so you get instant price discounts. Or you can buy online from a site such as bulbs.com, which may have a much wider selection of standard and specialty bulbs.  If you have questions about features or how to find particular bulbs, feel free to contact us.

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