Will LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills?

I am frustrated to pay a large amount of electricity bills. Somebody told me led bulbs are 90% more efficient than traditional bulbs. This will help to reduce my electricity bills. One of my friend suggest me some online sellers in UK:

1) Switch2LEDs KTS Commerce
2) The LED Shop UK
3) Led centre
4) Simplyled

I am bit confused, is anyone suggest me the best seller who provide quality products with full guarantee on it and with some special offers.


Thanks in advance.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

LED bulbs are about 10x more efficient than incandescent bulbs, and some are slightly more efficient than fluorescent bulbs. I suggest you look into complete 'retrofit' LED bulbs, such as those made to fit into standard sockets. Here in the US we have the offerings from Philips, Cree, and such that work rather well.

There are some limits. How much of your power is lighting, vs water heater, dryer/washer, oven, fridge, AC use? Reducing 10% of your power consumption by 90% isn't such a big savings.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

if you consider price of led bulb is 20x or more of incandesent, and despite of leds life of 50000-100000 hour, led bulbs don't live nearly as much, many are poorly designed, and overheat, which kills them very fast. i also noticed a lot more often even before leds have chances to overheat, electronic part goes. i had tried few, but due to constant falures (gu10 bulb) i lost more money replacing those than i would on electricity.
i mean if a light fixture designed as led from the start, and build around led, that is one thing, retrofitting bulbs is another.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Typical power consumption for 800 lumens:

Incandescent - 60 watts
CFL - 13 watts
LED - 10 watts

Switching to LED bulbs will generally reduce electricity costs. However, as others have pointed out, there are a lot of cheap LED bulbs out there, which will flicker, buzz, or overheat and fail. Definitely research before you buy.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Over the last year or so, more and more LED bulbs have passed 60 lumens per watt which is typical for a 13 watt CFL. Many LED bulbs don't even reach 60 L/w. As much as I like LED bulbs, CFLs are the best option for savings as they are the lowest cost option.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Unless you have the time and knowledge to research alternate brands, then stick to brands you recognize, i.e. Philips, Osram/Sylvania, GE, etc. Failure rate for well made bulbs is very low. At current LED prices and electricity prices, and home usage patterns, don't expect payback any time soon. For home users, expect 3-6 years. Business users on the other hand get payback in as little as 14 months. Most (not all) LED bulbs are dimmable where very few CFL are. This drives many peoples purchasing decisions. There may be a preference for LED spectrum as well.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

JohnR66 said:

As much as I like LED bulbs, CFLs are the best option for savings as they are the lowest cost option.

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That's true. If you're a dollars and cents kind of guy, use CFL's now, and wait a year or 2 for LED lamps to get cheaper and more efficient. That said, LEDs do make sense where you don't want the warm-up time of a CFL, or have a lamp that gets switched on and off a lot, as CFLs tend to have annoyingly short life, and (I'm hoping) LEDs will fair better. The other ideal application for LEDs is early adopters. Face it, some of like the latest stuff, even if it doesn't make sense from an economics standpoint.

If it was just about lumens/watt economics, just use T8 fluorescent - that's still hard to beat...

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Numbers are approximate.

Incandescent bulbs get more efficient as they go up in wattage.
800 lumens, 60W, 13 lm/w;
1600 lumens, 100W, 16lm/w.

CFL bulbs vary between 55 and 66 lm/w.
800 lumens, 13W, 62 lm/w.

LED are a problem. The quality of both LEDs and bulbs have undergone major changes in the last 3 years or so.
I have a Philips bulb 155 lumens, 7W, 22 lm/w. Barely better than an incandescent, 1/3 the efficiency of a CFL!!!
I have another Philips bulb 320 lumens, 4W, 80 lm/w. This provides double the light for half the electricity than the other bulb!!! 4X better!!!
Because of the big variation of LED bulb efficiency you can not just say LED. You have to calculate the efficiency of each model bulb.
Note: The bulbs across the pond seem to be a generation behind those in North America from casual browsing of homedepot.com vs. amazon.co.uk.

Update your profile to include UK in Location.
Otherwise you will get advice to buy 115V 60 Hz E26 screw base bulbs that would not work in a 230V 50Hz E22 bayonet socket.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

AnAppleSnail said:

There are some limits. How much of your power is lighting, vs water heater, dryer/washer, oven, fridge, AC use? Reducing 10% of your power consumption by 90% isn't such a big savings.

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This.

Optimizing what may be a minor slice of your electrical consumption may not reduce your bills to the point that it is noticeable. While you will be using less power, fluctuations in other higher-drain usages can mask the savings.

For example: I live in a region that gets extremely hot in the summer - to the point that running air conditioning triples my electrical bills in the summer. My typical lighting load feasibly peak at perhaps 500W for 4-6 hours an evening (if I had incandescents). The air conditioner is on a 240V / 40A circuit (9.6kW peak) and probably draws around 5000W when active ... and it's on a 50% duty cycle during the summer. There are no other appliances in my house that draw that kind of load for that duration, so climate control bears some looking at if I want to save energy. I could get a more efficient compressor, improve insulation, plant shade trees, get a smarter programmable thermostat, or a number of other options that would not only have faster ROI than lighting improvements but also take a decent chunk out of my electric bill.



Should you decide to investigate LED bulbs anyway, I would second the advice that you stick to name brands such as Philips, GE, or any other brand that has an existing presence in your country. Unlike some new brand you've never heard of that contracts the manufacture of a design to some distant third party, these companies have a valued brand name and will tend to produce better-quality product and also stand behind their product in the event of a failure.

I would also try to find independent reviews of anything you're interested in. Big sites like Amazon tend not to interfere with reviews very much - can't say I feel the same about a number of smaller sellers, especially those with few critical reviews of their wares.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

alpg88 said:

if you consider price of led bulb is 20x or more of incandesent, and despite of leds life of 50000-100000 hour, led bulbs don't live nearly as much, many are poorly designed, and overheat, which kills them very fast. i also noticed a lot more often even before leds have chances to overheat, electronic part goes. i had tried few, but due to constant falures (gu10 bulb) i lost more money replacing those than i would on electricity.
i mean if a light fixture designed as led from the start, and build around led, that is one thing, retrofitting bulbs is another.

Click to expand...

If pricing trends continue, LED bulbs might someday be in the same boat as CFL - they won't need to hit their claimed lifespans to beat the dogsnot out of incandescent TCO since the operating costs for incandescent are so high by comparison.

Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Try Osram Circolux.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Will LED bulbs reduce your electric bills? It depends. If you leave all the lights in your home on all the time, then yes. But if you turn off the lights when you are not using them, then not really.

Obviously it might not make much economical sense to switch out your bulbs in places where you seldom use it, or where it only gets turned on for a very short period of time (closets for example). And since LED bulbs with more light output are more expensive, that is another factor. My conundrum is that all the bulbs in my home that get left on for long periods of time require 100 watt equivalent. Many of these are in enclosed fixtures. And I just cannot justfy the much higher cost of these brighter LED bulbs (also the A21 size of all these 100 watt equivalents are too wide to fit in most of the lamps because of the cooling fins).

henryhudson said:

LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills?

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If you live in a colder climate, they might reduce your electricity bills, but they will also increase your heating bills. :laughing:
People typically turn on their lights at night, when it is colder. Even in climates that are considered warm, the nights can still be slightly cold most of the year. This is certainly the case in desert climates, very hot in the daytime and very cold at night.

And obviously if you are using a portable electic space heater, using 'energy efficient' lighting at the same time would not decrease your energy usage at all! Incandescent bulbs may not produce a lot of heat, but they are no less efficient than a portable electric heater, and any additional heat in my home is more than welcome.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Anders Hoveland said:

If you live in a colder climate, they might reduce your electricity bills, but they will also increase your heating bills. :laughing:
People typically turn on their lights at night, when it is colder. Even in climates that are considered warm, the nights can still be slightly cold most of the year. This is certainly the case in desert climates, very hot in the daytime and very cold at night.

And obviously if you are using a portable electic space heater, using 'energy efficient' lighting at the same time would not decrease your energy usage at all! Incandescent bulbs may not produce a lot of heat, but they are no less efficient than a portable electric heater, and any additional heat in my home is more than welcome.

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Every effective electric space heater I've seen is a minimum of several hundred watts (usually 1200W), specifically designed to transfer heat into the surrounding air, and - unless it's designed for a high-current/high-voltage outlet or permanent installation - rated for a small area due to the limits of the average outlet. Compare this to the incandescent light bulb - typically less than 120W, does little to heat the air, emits appreciable amounts of non-IR spectrum, and is often in a fixture that absorbs a good deal of that IR while being poorly placed to help heat the room.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

I have trouble locating the websites you mentioned. Found 2.

ledcentre.uk:
Their bulbs are very low powered (and therefor very dim). Note they would not state the lumens the bulbs produce.
The ones that say 5mm will be at half brightness in 6 months and useless in a year. STAY AWAY!
I use 2W bulbs as a nitelite.
Which leaves you with the 4.7W ones. They should be between a 15W and 25W incandescent in brightness.
Bright white is cool white.

simplyled.co.uk:
8w, 500-600 Lumens => 62.5 - 75 lm/w

6w, 360 Lumens => 60 lm/w

5w, 170 Lumens => 34 lm/w

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Compare to what I can buy at Home Depot in Canada:
http://www.homedepot.ca/catalog/led-bulbs/172458

Cree (These have just been released in the last month. Latest and greatest.)
6W, 450 lumens => 75 lm/w (40W equivalent)
http://www.homedepot.ca/product/6-watt-40w-warm-white-led-light-bulb-1-pack/827152

9.5W, 800 lumens => 84 lm/w (warm white) (60W equivalent)
http://www.homedepot.ca/product/95-watt-60w-warm-white-led-light-bulb-1-pack/827146

9W, 800 lumens => 89 lm/w (cool white)
http://www.homedepot.ca/product/9-watt-60w-daylight-led-light-bulb-1-pack/827149

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I would stay away from small outfits that obtain their No Name bulbs from unknown sources and stick with mainstream well known light bulb companies like Philips, GE, Osram, Sylvania, Toshiba. Do not forget Amazon.co.uk.

Luminous Flux 330, Wattage 4 watts, Incandescent Equivalent 30 watts, £10.79 Note E14 -base - for comparison with the 5W bulb at simplyled. 1 less watt but twice the brightness.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0085WFOGU/

Luminous Flux 290, Wattage 5.5 watts, Incandescent Equivalent 40 watts, £8.40
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005J3DGJA/

Luminous Flux 350 lumen, Wattage 6 watts, Incandescent Equivalent 32 watts, £14.86.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007K8LYFU/

Luminous Flux 470, Wattage 9 watts, Incandescent Equivalent 40 watts, £10.24.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005OYW64K/

Luminous Flux 600 lumen, Wattage 10 watts, Incandescent Equivalent 48 watts, £16.99
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007K8QM4I/

Luminous Flux 806 lumen, Wattage 12 watts, Incandescent Equivalent 60 watts, £28.99.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004FUFGXW/

Luminous Flux 1050, Wattage 17 watts, (listed as 75W equivalent in US/Canada), £39.99
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007WJD1U8/

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

idleprocess said:

Every effective electric space heater I've seen is a minimum of several hundred watts (usually 1200W)

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That is really rather irrelevant. Obviously most people are not going to turn on their light bulb as a heater, but it is just a little added benefit. The issue is efficiency, and if you are happy to have any small ammount of extra heat that may be given off, an incandescent is basically 100% efficient.

Although I have read many stories on the internet about farmers who leave a light bulb on in certain places to prevent pipes from freezing in the winter, or to prevent condensation from forming that would lead to mold.

idleprocess said:

Compare this to the incandescent light bulb, does little to heat the air, emits appreciable amounts of non-IR spectrum, and is often in a fixture that absorbs a good deal of that IR while being poorly placed to help heat the room.

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I very much disagree. Heat is heat. I have read all sorts of different arguments online claiming that the heat from incandescent bulbs is not so efficient as a heater because it is not designed to heat the room.

I even found this ridiculous argument on an educational city government website:

Myth: CFLs don't save money because my heating system has to work harder to produce the lost heat I would have received from my regular incandescent.
Reality: The heat lost when switching from an incandescent to a CFL has a negligible effect on your heating system.The heat that emanates from incandescent bulbs tends to hang up near the ceiling, and has little effect on your thermostat.

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To reply to this false claim: Even if the heating effect truely is "negligible", one could logically argue that the potential energy savings themselves from CFL/LED are also "negligible" compared to the energy consumption of the heating system. In any case, this does nothing to adress the original argument itself: that it is pointless to try to prevent electric power from being converted to heat while one is also using energy to heat the home at the same time. All heat tends to rise upward toward the ceilling. A heating system typically has a fan that pushes the air around. This movement of air will also push around the air towards the ceilling. And if the air near the ceilling is already warm, it will just prevent more of the warm air from the heater from also similarly rising and being "wasted".

I suppose an argument could be made if only using a wood burning fireplace to heat the home (biofuel), but how many commonly people do that? In many situations it uses less energy (and less money) to just turn on a little portable electric space heater in the room you are in, than to turn on the central heating system to heat the entire house.

Besides, many apartments and student dormitories have electric floorboard heaters (well, perhaps not where you live) so it hardly makes sense not to be using incandescent bulbs just because gas heating is cheaper than electic.

Energy efficient lighting will not actually save any energy in many situations, especially in colder climates.
Conversely, if the night time temperatures where you live are warm most of the year, then the undesirable heating effect may be an additional reason to switch to energy efficient lighting. I am not sure how much sense it makes to be using "energy efficient" lighting for residential purposes in Northern Europe and Canada. In the USA, although there are significant temperature differences between the north and south parts of the country, I have read that overall more energy is used on heating than on air conditioning.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/ho...ning-might-be-more-sustainable-we-think/5115/

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

AnAppleSnail said:

LED bulbs are about 10x more efficient than incandescent bulbs

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Really?

The EcoSmart "40 watt" equivalent LED bulb is 50 lumens per watt (430 / 8.6 w). Some of the more expensive LED retrofit bulbs come closer to 60 lumens per watt.

A modern incandescent bulb (with a halogen capsule inside) that you will find in stores is around 18-21 lumens per watt, depending which country you live in. (1490 / 72w) or (1900 / 105w). Even the incandescent bulbs without an inner halogen capsule could have an efficiency of 17 lumens per watt (1700 / 100w).

Seems to me like standard LED bulbs are only 2-3 times more efficient at producing light.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Anders Hoveland said:

That is really rather irrelevant. Obviously most people are not going to turn on their light bulb as a heater, but it is just a little added benefit. The issue is efficiency, and if you are happy to have any small ammount of extra heat that may be given off, an incandescent is basically 100% efficient.

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It's still relevant. If it's not effective, it's a moot point.

Anders Hoveland said:

Although I have read many stories on the internet about farmers who leave a light bulb on in certain places to prevent pipes from freezing in the winter, or to prevent condensation from forming that would lead to mold.

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So have I. These arrangement typically involve very small spaces of a few cubic feet, insulation, reflectors, and black iron pipe designed to maximize absorption. Contrast to the typical room of 800 cubic feet or more optimized for habitation and the analogy fails.

Anders Hoveland said:

I very much disagree. Heat is heat. I have read all sorts of different arguments online claiming that the heat from incandescent bulbs is not so efficient as a heater because it is not designed to heat the room.

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Great. Bother yourself to refute the claim, will you? To recap, purpose-built space heaters use convection to transfer heat into the air at appreciable wattage while much lower-wattage incandescent lightbulbs radiate IR - which doesn't interact with the air much at all.

Anders Hoveland said:

I even found this ridiculous argument on an educational city government website:

To reply to this false claim: Even if the heating effect truely is "negligible"

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Full stop right there. If it's negligible then it's negligible.

Anders Hoveland said:

In any case, this does nothing to adress the original argument itself: that it is pointless to try to prevent electric power from being converted to heat while one is also using energy to heat the home at the same time. All heat tends to rise upward toward the ceilling.

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You thrash around and wave your hand but never actually get around to the point of how effective are incandescent lights at heating a room when desired. You also make nothing of the slight advantage that an IR-producing light source has - emitting much of its spectrum downward where the heat is presumably wanted.

Anders Hoveland said:

A heating system typically has a fan that pushes the air around. This movement of air will also push around the air towards the ceilling. And if the air near the ceilling is already warm, it will just prevent more of the warm air from the heater from also similarly rising and being "wasted".

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I never realized that the high-CFM blowers in a HVAC system were pointless - the 40+ degree differential that my modest furnace can seemingly produce downstairs must be an illusion!

Anders Hoveland said:

In many situations it uses less energy (and less money) to just turn on a little portable electric space heater in the room you are in, than to turn on the central heating system to heat the entire house.

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Indeed - and watt-for-watt it will be far more effective at raising air temperature than turning on the lights.

Anders Hoveland said:

Energy efficient lighting will not actually save any energy in many situations, especially in colder climates.

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An assertion you have thus far failed to substantiate.

Anders Hoveland said:

In the USA, although there are significant temperature differences between the north and south parts of the country, I have read that overall more energy is used on heating than on air conditioning.

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I have made this point many many times...

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

Anders Hoveland said:

The EcoSmart "40 watt" equivalent LED bulb is 50 lumens per watt (430 / 8.6 w). Some of the more expensive LED retrofit bulbs come closer to 60 lumens per watt.

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Not trying very hard ($13, 84 lm/W), are you ($15, 76 lm/W)? Troll harder.

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

I started switching my house to LED lighting a little over two years ago. Am at about 70 LED bulbs and luminares with 30 or so to go. My electric bill is down by almost half compared to two years ago and more than half compared to three years ago. Gas usage is about the same as it has always been.

It is ironic that most of my remaining non-LEDs are CFLs. My formerly 'energy efficient' bulbs are now my 'energy hogs'...

Re: Are LED Bulbs reduce electricity bills

idleprocess said:

You thrash around and wave your hand but never actually get around to the point of how effective are incandescent lights at heating a room when desired.

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The longer you are in the room, the more effective it will be at heating the room when desired. :laughing:
Obviously, if you just briefly enter the room and only have the light turned on for a few minutes, most of that heat may not have time to reach you. But then you won't exactly be wasting much energy either, will you?

Heat gradually dissipates, and it is just a matter of time before the heat in any one part of the room becomes evenly spread out everywhere.

idleprocess said:

You also make nothing of the slight advantage that an IR-producing light source has - emitting much of its spectrum downward where the heat is presumably wanted.

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Certainly a valid point. Firstly, an incandescent bulb does give off some radiant IR heat (not exactly sure how much or what the actual efficiency is, or how much is able to pass through the glass).

I have a parabolic radiant heater, and despite the claim on the packaging that it is "3 times more efficient", I find that it is less effective at warming me than my old portable little space heater (which has a little fan). The radiant heat seems to just heat one side of my body, while the rest is still cold. I find it does not heat evenly, and one part of my body quickly becomes uncomfortably hot while the rest is still cold. Not only that, but the IR is also easily blocked by furniture or the chair I am sitting in. In contrast, my old heater seems to warm my body more quickly more evenly heat a wider area of the room.

Now, admittingly an incandescent bulb does not have a fan, but if there was air moving around in the room for some reason it would likely have the same effect. For example, if the central heating in the house was already on, air would be circulating around.


But we are really arguing over a trivial little effect. A light bulb only uses 70 watts or so, and no matter how that heat is dissipated, it's really not a big ammount of energy. A heater uses far more energy than a light bulb, assuming you do not leave your lights on all the time when you are not there. At least in my house, the computers waste more energy than the lighting.

I do believe LED bulbs can save money, if used in locations where the lamp gets left on all the time because people never bother to turn it off. I have a few family that just leave half the bulbs in their home on all the time - and then they wonder why the bulbs burn out so fast.