CLCBulbs 813-514-1266 Are efficient LED bulbs worth the price? As general-purpose LED bulbs come to market, the prices are relatively high. But if you consider long-term savings and use them for specific purposes, they look more compelling. At this point, LED bulbs are the hybrid cars of lighting. Theyre cheaper to operate but cost more upfront than their less-efficient cousins. There have been LED spotlights and smaller lights for years, but now people can buy LED bulbs that give out as much light as a 60-watt incandescent and are designed for use just about anywhere. And rather than purchase them online or in a specialty store, they will be available at Home Depot, Lowes, and no doubt other familiar retail outlets next year. Weighing cost and light quality, LEDs are worth considering right now for downlights and worth keeping an eye on if you have a lot of incandescent bulbs. If you already have a lot of CFLs in places like desktop lamps, dont expect a quick payback by switching over. But LEDs offer some other advantages, notably longer life. Lighting your living space is obviously a very personal decision, but as you think about upgrading with energy efficiency in mind, here are a few factors to consider. Cost The good news on LEDs are that these lights, quality-wise, are quite good and they put out enough light for a lot of needs. But theres no getting around the fact that LED bulbs for general lighting are a new technology that comes with a price premium. If you were considering moving en masse to LEDs, you would need to take a long view from a financial perspective. Osram Sylvania figures that putting its $39.98 LED in to replace a 60-watt incandescent will save $132 over the life of the bulb, assuming a price of electricity at 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. Thats more than 25,000 hours, or 17 years of using a bulb four hours a day. Taking a more conservative, short-term view, I did some back-of-the envelope calculations. If you used a bulb for just two hours a day and paid the national average of 11.5 cents per kilowatt hour, a single 12-watt LED will cost you about $1 per year. Comparable CFLs that consume about 14 watts come to $1.17 per year and about $5 a year for 60-watt incandescents in that scenario. (See formula.) The minimal energy savings you get from going from CFL to LEDs reflects that LED bulbs are only slightly more efficient, when measured on lumens per watt. And, of course, CFLs have come way down in price over the past few years, while LEDs are still at the top of a projected downward cost curve. If you have incandescent bulbs, saving $4 a year with an LED is more compelling, but thats still a long pay back. Electricity prices vary quite a bit (see here for your state average) in the U.S. and changing the number of hours per day will vary the result quite a bit. For example, if you use an LED bulb four hours a day and pay a higher rate of 16 cents per kilowatt hour, youd save $11 per year per bulb over an incandescent, giving you a payback time frame for a $40 LED of between three and four years. Obviously, these savings get bigger, the more bulbs you replace. More significant is that LEDs have a stated life time of 25,000 hours or more, compared to about 8,000 for CFLs, and less than 1,000 for incandescents. So if you factor in replacements, the numbers look more favorable. Keep in mind that LEDs are on a faster efficiency and price-improvement track than other lighting technologies. Some lighting industry executives expect the price for an 800-lumen LED bulb to fall to about $20 within two years, which changes the math significantly. And utilities could begin to subsidize them, as they did with CFLs. To be continued... Ref: CNET Commercial Lighting Tampa 8135141266
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 19:07:50 +0000