How to save money with Led lights

No doubt you will have heard that swapping your standard bulbs for LED bulbs can save you money, and many LED manufacturers make very brave claims (including us!). These savings claims are, of course, based on averages and assumptions; But can you calculate how much you'll actually save by switching to LED lighting? This article provides the answer.

How LED bulbs save you money

The cost savings provided by LED lighting are due to two factors:

1. LEDs require much less electricity than traditional incandescent and halogen bulbs, and energy-efficient bulbs (CFLs).
2. They last much longer than their incandescent, halogen and CFL equivalents.

For example, a 60W halogen bulb would be replaced with a 9W LED. That's an 85% reduction in electricity consumption. The LED bulb will also last more than 20,000 hours, instead of 2,000 hours for halogen, ten times more!

What about CFL hotspots? Using the same example, a 60W halogen equivalent would be an 11W CFL bulb, so the reduction in electricity consumption from CFL to LED would be 18%. A good quality CFL should last about 8,000 hours, which is still less than half the equivalent LED.

Calculate LED light bulb cost savings

Now that we know why LED bulbs are cheaper, we can now see how you can calculate how much money you can expect when switching to LED.

The information you need to resolve this is:

1. The voltage of your current bulbs and spotlights.
2. The average time each bulb is in use per day.
3. Your current electricity rate per kilowatt hour (kWh, kW-h or kW h). The UK average at the time of writing is 14.71 pence per kWh if you pay by direct debit.
4. The cost of replacing each bulb with an equivalent LED.

To help you organize all the information, we have created a spreadsheet that you can download here (when you open it, click "File" and then "Download As"). Just check your house room by room and put your numbers in the colored cells.

The calculation

When using the spreadsheet, the calculations are done for you, but for information they are:

Current cost per month (Current wattage / 1,000) x use in p/day hours x cost p/kWh x 30 days
New cost per month (New power / 1,000) x use in p/day hours x cost p/kWh x 30 days
monthly savings – current cost per month – new cost per month
Recovery period (months) – total cost of light bulb replacement / monthly savings

TYD ELECTRONICS