Your festive lights won’t blow Eskom

● If you think the lights on your Christmas tree might push SA back to stage 6 loadshedding, think again.

Lighting experts say the tiny bulbs which adorn the Christmas trees of many homes, are usually the light-emitting diode (LED) variety, which are energy efficient and use approximately 85% less energy than the halogen or incandescent types.

“These lights are low voltage and don’t consume a lot of power. The wattage and consumption of Christmas lights are very low,” said Nevon Singh, a Durban lighting specialist.

“I really don’t think the consumer will be short-changing the power supply if they use Christmas lights, because of the LED technology.”

According to clickenergy.com LED lights consume, on average, about 1.2 to 2 watts of electricity for every 100 LED bulbs, which is 90% less than the standard incandescent fairy lights.

Load-shedding has not dimmed Christmas light extravaganzas in SA.

Organisers of the Durban Botanic Gardens annual Trail of Lights have brought in generators to power up lights in the event of outages.

The event, a major festive attraction for the city, sees the gardens festooned in millions of lights.

“Lighting used is LED low consumption, packaging within the food garden and festive market is biodegradable and all waste generated from the event is recycled or ethically disposed,” said organiser Alene Naidoo.

“There are generators on standby that will power up the entire gardens should there be load-shedding,” she said.