Energy Affordable Mass Market LED Lights on the Way By Ryan McGreal

Published February 23, 2007

(this article has been updated)

The folks at treehugger just reported that a company in The Netherlands has launched a new LED light, called the "Pharox", which generates as much light as a 40 watt bulb but uses only 3.4 watts.

A pack of four costs € 22.68. That's $8.63 Cdn per bulb.

Granted, that sounds like a lot of money, but as always with these matters, it's important to pay attention to the lifecycle costs, not just the initial capital cost. A three-way comparison between LEDs, compact fluorescent lights (CFL) and incandescent light bulbs (ILB) is in order.

Purchase Costs

Because LEDs and CFLs have a much longer lifespan than ILB, we need to calculate the lifetime costs of replacing the lights. Let's start with LEDs, which have the longest lifespan. Because the LED actually produces less light than the other two, I bumped the price up to an even $10 for the sake of comparison.

LED: lasts 60,000 hours. At $10.00 per light, it costs $10 for 60,000 hours.

CFL: lasts 10,000 hours. At $10.00 per light, it costs $60 for 60,000 hours.

ILB: lasts 1,000 hours. At $0.50 per light, it costs $30 for 60,000 hours.

Energy Costs

So far, LEDs are ahead. However, we also have to calculate the lifetime energy costs of operating the lights.

For the sake of this example, I used $0.10 per kilowatt-hour. Bear in mind that over the next twenty years, that price is ridiculously optimistic; we will more likely be paying at least triple that price, either directly in our hydro bills or indirectly through tax subsidies.

Note: the featured LED is 3.4 watts but only produces light equivalent to a 40 watt bulb. For the sake of comparison, I calculated that an LED producing light equivalent to a 60 watt bulb would require 5.1 watts.

So:

LED: 5.1 watts * 60,000 hours = 306 kilowatt-hours. At 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, you'll pay $30.60 to run an LED for 60,000 hours.

CFL: 16 watts * 60,000 hours = 960 kilowatt-hours. At 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, you'll pay $96.00 to run CFLs for 60,000 hours.

ILB: 60 watts * 60,000 hours = 3600 kilowatt-hours. At 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, you'll pay a whopping $360.00 to run incandescent bulbs for 60,000 hours.

Total Costs

Now we can add up the purchase price and usage price for each light over 60,000 hours to get the total price.

Light Types Total Cost Comparison Light Purchase Price Usage Price Total LED $10.00 $30.60 $40.60 CFL $60.00 $96.00 $156.00 ILB $30.00 $360.00 $390.00

Over the 60,000 hour life of an LED light, you'll save $115.40 compared to CFL, and $349.40 compared to ILB. Hmmm, tough decision.

Update: A reader noticed that my summary table erroneously listed the total purchase costs of a CFL as $10 instead of $60. I've corrected this. Thanks for pointing it out! - R.

Update 2: A few commenters have suggested that $10 per CFL is too much money. The last time I bought CFLs was a couple of years ago and they were that much back then. For the sake of argument, I re-calculated the Cost Comparison based on $3 per CFL. Replace six times, that works out to $18.

Light Types Total Cost Comparison, $3/CFL Light Purchase Price Usage Price Total LED $10.00 $30.60 $40.60 CFL $18.00 $96.00 $114.00 ILB $30.00 $360.00 $390.00

As you can see, at $114 total cost, CFL is still considerably more expensive.

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan wrote a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. His articles have also been published in The Walrus, HuffPost and Behind the Numbers. He maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.

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