Switch to LED fairy lights to cut your power bill this year end

I T’S that time of the year when fairy lights, gathering dust since being stuffed in a box in January, will be making their appearance again in many homes.

Christmas lights and other fairy lights can last for years, and that means they’re often made up of old, inefficient incandescent light bulbs. So, is it worth replacing them?

A few fairy lights aren’t going to massively increase your electricity bill, but replacing old light bulbs with modern LEDS will still save you money, experts say.

Environmental researchers from Germany’s Oeko-institut recommends replacing the old bulbs with modern LEDS which will save energy, cut CO2 emissions and save you money. The institute’s calculations suggest the oldstyle bulbs could consume a staggering 95% more power than efficient LEDS.

Keeping one chain of old-style lights on for an average of threeand-a-half hours every day through to the end of the Christmas holidays (five weeks) will cost about US$2 (RM8.15). A chain of LED lights could consume as little as a few cents-worth of electricity over the same period.

The Oeko-institut reckons that if everyone in a city with 200,000 inhabitants used LEDS instead of old-style light bulbs at Christmas, it would save enough electricity to power 340 average households for a whole year.

However, not every LED light chain is economical, and energy consultant Ines Ewen advises against using cordless, batterypowered LED tree candles.

Battery power is 150 times more expensive than electricity from the socket. Moreover, batteries have a relatively short life span. Replacing the batteries several times also means that more hazardous waste is generated. – dpa