Save money by replacing incandescent holiday lights with LED versions

If your holiday lights have seen better days, you might want to replace incandescent versions with more-efficient and more-durable LED lights.

Our tests of mini, C7, and C9 holiday lights showed that while incandescent versions did burn more brightly than LEDs, the LEDs were much more durable, ran cooler and posed a lower fire risk, and cost less to operate. While the initial cost of LEDs is higher than that of incandescents, we found that LEDs used 1 to 3 kilowatt hours of energy compared with 12 to 105 kWh for incandescents, generating savings of $1 to $11. Watch the video for more details.

Home Depot is offering an added incentive to trade in your played-out strings. For each string of used or broken incandescent holiday lights you turn in through November 15, Home Depot will give you $3 off any new LED lights you buy. The retailer says it will recycle any lights you turn in.

Remember, LED lights are not foolproof, as evidenced by this March 2009 recall issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The lights presented a fire hazard and lacked an easily verifiable label from Underwriters Laboratories or any other recognized testing laboratory indicating that the product had met all safety and construction standards. To keep things safe at your home, follow these precautions for holiday lights:

• Buy only products certified by a recognized testing laboratory, including UL, ETL, or CSA. For UL-listed products, look for the silver- or gold-foil UL label on the cord itself. Labels with the green holographic UL logo indicate the lights are for indoor use only, while those with the red holographic UL logo can be used indoors and out.

• Before you hang them, inspect light strings carefully for loose connections, bare or frayed wires, missing bulbs, and cracked sockets.

• Don't use indoor string lights for more than a 90-day season without inspecting. Don't use outdoor lights for more than three holiday seasons.

• Don't connect more than three strings of push-in bulbs or up to 50 screw-in bulbs together. There are no specific limitations for LED light strings.

• Since the lights' electrical cords might contain lead, refrain from eating while hanging lights and wash your hands after handling them.—Gian Trotta | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: Save money on lighting elsewhere in your house by using Energy Star-qualified compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Read our latest report on CFLs and check out the ratings of these energy-saving bulbs (available to subscribers).

A tale of two Super Bowl ads: GE's smart grid and Cash4Gold

The broadcast for last February's Super Bowl XLIII, in which the Pittsburgh Steelers edged the Arizona Cardinals, featured the usual roster of ads vying for your attention and Twitter posts if not your money.

Among the more notable spots were this one for Cash4Gold, in which Ed McMahon and MC Hammer urged people to trade in their precious jewelry for cold, hard cash and this one for GE's efforts related to the smart grid, in which an animated scarecrow sings an updated rendition of The Wizard of Oz tune "If I Only Had a Brain" (shown).

The intervening months have not been kind to Cash4Gold, as you can read in the coverage by our colleagues at the Consumerist.

The smart grid has fared significantly better. About $4.5 billion in federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is being doled out by the U.S. Department of Energy to help utilities turn the existing power grid into a smart network. This modernization is designed to enable two-way communication between utilities and consumers.provide safer, more-efficient management of the electric grid, and save you money.

Based on what I heard during an Edison Electric Institute event last week in New York City, it seems as if the stimulus influx for the smart grid has the country's biggest power companies in good spirits.

"We've been talking about the smart grid for years," said Thomas R. Kuhn, EEI president and event moderator. "It's finally coming to fruition." He added that 58 million smart meters will be installed in U.S. homes within the next 10 years. Pacific Gas & Electric, for instance, says it has deployed smart meters for nearly 4 million of its 15 million customers in California and installs 13,000 every day.

During the event, Andrew Tang, senior director of PG&E's Smart Energy Web, talked about the "changing relationship between consumers and their electric bill" that smart meters catalyze. For example, instead of paying a flat rate for electricity, customers pay a time-of-use rate, with peak hours occurring from midday to early evening. Customers can also buy an energy orb (shown), a plug-in device that changes colors to indicate real-time changes in the price of electricity. A simple visual signal like this results in energy reductions ranging from 22 to 37 percent, according to Tang. And more-sophisticated technologies are on the way, including comprehensive in-home displays and programmable communicating thermostats, which are supposed to automatically adjust temperatures based on pricing signals they receive from the utility.

Buzzword: Socket Saturation

What it means. Socket saturation represents the number of lighting fixtures that use compact fluorescent lightbulbs in this country, according to the folks who run the federal government's Energy Star program.

But the term is actually a misnomer: Although 70 percent of all U.S. homes have at least one CFL—the average is 4.4 CFLs per household—only around 11 percent of all residential sockets are fitted with a CFL, according to Energy Star's March 2009 "Big Results, Bigger Potential" market profile (PDF). Hardly a saturation point. That Energy Star report even acknowledges that "Despite recent market growth, CFL household saturation is still low throughout the United States, even in regions with successful and long-standing energy efficiency programs. . . . Overall, there is still plenty of room for the CFL market to grow." Rush Limbaugh, bombastic basher of CFLs, would probably be happy to read about this less-than-significant saturation.

Why the buzz? Given that CFLs are not an emerging technology and that they can save you significant money over their life span, you'd think that their market penetration would be deeper. Plus, all the coverage of these energy-efficient lightbulbs—including our October 2009 report, which includes ratings of two dozen different CFLs (available to subscribers)—seems like it would have been a sales booster, too.

There are a number of likely causes of this modest socket saturation, including problems with the bulbs themselves, such as cost, quality, performance, and light quality. Recession-driven belt-tightening by consumers is another reason for the shallow penetration. Indeed, even as the price of CFLs has come down, their 2009 sales have dropped 25 percent from their 2007 peak, according to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.

The long CFL life span and fewer available in-store promotions and incentives from utilities haven't helped sales either, according to Christina Kielich, a spokeswoman for U.S. Department of Energy.

If you want to take advantage of the money CFLs can save you—about $56 over the average bulb's life—follow the buying advice from our October 2009 report and remember:

• CFLs aren't ideal for every application. They work best in light fixtures that remain on for long periods since frequent cycling on and off can shorten their life, and you won’t get the maximum energy savings from fixtures that are left on for only a few minutes at a time.
• Color is key. As with all lightbulbs, CFLs come in different   "temperatures"—that is their yellowness, blueness, or whiteness. So learn about their various colors as well as their light output (lumens). And since it might take some trial and error to find CFLs that work in your surroundings, save your receipts so you can return bulbs that don't work for you.
• CFLs take time to fully brighten. Since run-up time ranges from 27 seconds to 3 minutes for the bulbs in our tests, don't use CFLs in areas where you need instant light.
• Energy Star-qualified bulbs are best. In our tests, most non-Energy Star CFLs had lower overall scores than Energy Star models. e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential reading: CFLs, including all we've tested, contain small amounts of mercury. To keep mercury from being released into the environment, don't throw CFLs out with the trash or your regular recycling. To learn how to dispose of them properly, contact your local department of public works. And if a CFL breaks, follow these clean-up instructions. Finally, if you have you avoided or stopped using CFLs at home, tell us why by leaving a comment below.

Smoke and CO alarms are key safety devices for the home

A recent fire at a home in Ross, Pennsylvania, serves as a reminder that you need reliable smoke and carbon-monoxide alarms properly placed throughout your home.

According to this report in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 48-year-old Edward Stefanick remained asleep in his bedroom even as firefighters spent two hours battling a blaze in his home. "You would've thought that, by that time, he would've kind of rose and got himself out of there," Ross Fire Marshal John Reubi told the newspaper.

The layout of the home kept the bedroom largely clear of smoke, though Ross was disoriented when firefighters finally found him and was hospitalized in critical condition with a high carbon-monoxide level.

If you need to replace your existing (or buy new)  smoke and carbon-monoxide alarms, read our latest report on these devices and review our ratings of smoke and CO alarms and exclusive interactive (available to subscribers) to find the best models for your home. The highly rated First Alert OneLink SCO501CN smoke and carbon-monoxide alarm is shown.

Once you've bought your new smoke and carbon-monoxide alarms, be sure to install them in the right places.—Gian Trotta | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: Learn how to prevent kitchen and dryer fires.

Forum Friday: CFLs light up the discussion boards

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs have long been a popular and controversial subject on our forums. So it was no surprise that after airing an interview with one of our editors about CFLs, National Public Radio reported receiving an unusually large number of e-mails. (To find the best CFLs for your home, read our October 2009 report and check out the ratings of specific models, available to subscribers.)

Among reader concerns about CFLs are short life spans, disappointing light quality, and the potential mercury hazard. Learn how to safely dispose of CFLs.

Join in those discussions and others about on/off cycling shortening bulb life, consumers' experiences with brands, and dimmer switches.—Gian Trotta | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: To learn about the latest developments in lighting, read our 10 Questions for interview with researcher Nadarajah Narendran, Ph.D., the U.S. Department of Energy's Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prizes competition, or L Prize, and the European Union's ban of incandescent lightbulbs. For more news on energy efficiency, including the cash for clunkers for appliances program, visit our Energy Saving & Green Living guide.

With new LED lightbulb, Philips is first to enter DOE's Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prizes competition

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that over the course of a year LED lightbulbs could save enough power to illuminate more than 17 million American homes and also keep nearly 6 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions from entering the environment.

That's why the DOE, through its Energy's Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prizes competition, or L Prize, is fast-tracking efforts to find replacements for two of the most widely used inefficient lightbulbs—the 60-watt incandescent lightbulb and the PAR 38 halogen lamp.

Philips Electronics recently became the first company to submit an LED bulb (shown) into the $10 million competition, which was established through the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The winning bulbs will also be considered for federal purchasing agreements and promoted by DOE partners, including utility companies.

The DOE has set the bar high for the winning products. It's looking for LED lightbulbs that use less energy than not only incandescent and halogen bulbs but also compact fluorescent lightbulbs. (Check out our latest report on and ratings of CFLs, available to subscribers.) These LEDs must consume less than 10 watts, last more than 25,000 hours, and produce more than 900 lumens—a comparable output of a 60-watt incandescent lightbulb. What's more, the bulbs must be dimmable, and their color, light output, and light distribution must be similar to that of the bulbs their replacing. Independent laboratories will confirm that the bulbs meet the DOE's high standards through testing that's expected to take up to a year.

The competition encourages manufacturers to address LED drawbacks faster than the 20 years it's taken them to improve CFLs. Governments offering prizes for innovation isn't new. To help those lost at sea, the British government offered a prize in 1714 for coming up with a device to measure longitude, and in 1810 Napoleon offered a reward for finding a way to preserve food for soldiers. The chronometer and the canning process resulted.

You can find LEDs in stores now, and some are more efficient than CFLs, last even longer, turn on instantly, and don't contain mercury. But the quality of the white light LEDs typically produce isn't great, they don't produce enough light, and bulbs cost $20 to $50, with some soaring to $100.

The DOE has provided the following rough price guidelines for the winning LEDs: $30 (halogen replacement) and $22 (incandescent replacement) the first year the bulbs are on the market and $14 and $8, respectively, by the third year. These prices reflect rebates and other incentives to consumers. That's aggressive pricing, given that DOE is emphasizing a Made-in-the-U.S.A. model for the LEDs. For instance, 75 percent of the LED must be assembled in this country or packaged here, or the majority of the LED's die or chip must be U.S. made. One of the factors behind the price drop for CFLs is that most are made in China.

We'll continue to track the news surrounding the L Prize and keep you informed of the latest developments in LEDs.—Kimberly Janeway | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential reading: Find out how to choose CFLs, read "10 Questions for . . . Nadarajah Narendran, Ph.D., Lighting Researcher" for more news on advances in lighting technology, and see what European consumers think about the European Union's ban on some incandescent lightbulbs.

EU begins ban on incandescent lightbulbs

Retailers and consumers in Europe are complaining about the new ban on incandescent lightbulbs of more than 100 watts. According to this New York Times/International Herald Tribune report, the move is supposed to spur use of energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs, but the ban's opponents are citing CFL's higher per-bulb price and inferior quality of light.

The European Union argues that the switch, which will be gradually extended to cover lower-wattage lights by 2020, will save enough energy to power 11 million households and lower the average family's annual electric bill by about 50 euros (around $71.50). The EU also notes that consumers can still use transparent improved incandescent bulbs with halogen technology, which they claim provides exactly the same type and quality of light as conventional incandescent bulbs. (Read this post about new energy-efficiency rules for incandescent reflector lamps and general-service fluorescent lights. For more on the current quality of CFLs, read or listen to this National Public Radio interview with Celia Kuperszmid Lehrman, deputy editor of the Consumer Reports Home franchise.)

The EU is also pinning its long-term hopes on LEDs, which are free of the mercury found in CFLs and last even longer than CFLs. In a recent interview with Consumer Reports, Nadarajah Narendran, the director of research at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, described future improvements to LED lighting and its potential to help millions of people in the industrialized and developing worlds.—Gian Trotta | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: Our October 2009 report on CFLs found lower prices, better performance and a host of new models for a wider range of applications; ratings are available to subscribers. Find out what other green technologies are worth deploying in your home in our updated Energy Saving & Green Living guide.

10 Questions for . . . Nadarajah Narendran, Ph.D., Lighting Researcher

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Associate Editor Kimberly Janeway interviews Nadarajah Narendran, Ph.D., director of research at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York. Narendran discusses the future of lighting and explains how LED lighting holds promise for hundreds of millions of people in developing countries worldwide.

Why is LED technology the next big thing?
They last longer, so there’s less landfill. And the light they produce is improving. It’s not great yet. We’re confident because there’s a lot more research money being put into LED technology than into compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Therefore LED technology will improve greater and faster. There’s no one perfect lightbulb in this world. It’s a matter of more pros than cons. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs are better than incandescent bulbs. But now LED lights have come in. The CFL market will be eaten up by LEDs. Not everything, but little by little.
(Our tests have shown that CFLs can lag in color rendering and run-up time.)

What else needs to be done to improve LED lighting?
For LED lights to be transforming, we need to look at the infrastructure. It’s a waste of “talent” if we put an LED light in an incandescent socket. One of the LED features is you can dim up and down and change color, from more yellow to blue. That doesn’t happen with incandescent bulbs. The existing sockets and fixtures do not have good thermal management. So now if we replace incandescents with LED lights, the LED lights may not perform optimally.

When will LED lights be more widely available and come down in price?
Over the next five years we’ll see more products in stores. Now they’re not commonly available, so it’s hard to see that LED lights are a good option.

Where will CFLs fit in as LEDs become more common?
LED lights and CFLs will coexist. With LED lights, the price is going to come down. Now they’re in the $20-to-$50 region for a consumer. Part of the reason is the products are coming from overseas.

Have CFLs been perfected?
CFLs are really good now, and the quality has improved. It did ramp up when leading manufacturers made them. It’s a better product, better lasting, with better light and less mercury, but more products are in the market and not all are performing the same.
(Look for our new ratings-based report of CFLs in the October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports, online and on newsstands in early September.)

Incandescent bulbs had a long run as the dominant lighting source. What precipitated the move toward more-efficient technologies?
The energy crisis of the 1970s and climate changes forced the need for change.
(Read our interview with Ed Hammer, inventor of the CFL.)

Other than CFLs and LED lights, are there any other lighting alternatives?
There are people trying to do other lighting. Some researchers are trying to even make incandescents more efficient.
(Learn about the White House’s plan to boost the efficiency of some fluorescent and incandescent lightbulbs.)

You’re working to improve the quality of life for South Asians through lighting. How can lighting accomplish that?
We take lighting for granted. But there are many millions of people who do not have access to it—they use kerosene and candles and can’t do activities after darkness. They rely on daylight and the day is short for them. If you can provide lighting at affordable costs, you can provide opportunities, knowledge, education, and economic growth.

How can lighting change a family’s life?
In the U.S., lighting is a smaller portion of our home energy use compared with air conditioners, washers, and TVs, and. In South Asia, the cost of running lights is a significant part of budget. So if we can help with lights that use one third or one-tenth of the energy then it will save money.

What kind of lighting do you expect will be used in developing nations?
LED lights are wonderful lights sources when you don’t have access to the power grid. These lights are the answer because power requirements are low. You’ll be buying fewer bulbs over time, so they’re more cost effective when there’s no power grid. And LEDs are much more efficient than CFLs and don’t have mercury and disposal issues.

Essential information: Our experts debunk some of the myths that surround CFLs.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Company plans widespread installation of smart meters

2 million

Number of homes and businesses that will receive smart meters if an initiative filed by Baltimore Gas and Electric Company with the Maryland Public Service Commission is approved. In a 2008 pilot program, participating BGE homeowners reduced their electricity consumption by 26 to 37 percent during peak periods, slashing their annual electric bills by $100 on average.

BGE says the project will cost $500 million over five years to implement; $200 million of that could be covered by smart-grid funding in the federal stimulus bill. The remaining costs will be passed onto BGE customers via a monthly surcharge averaging $1.24 (electric customers) and $1.52 (gas customers).

"Our smart-grid initiative includes a host of transformational programs and energy management tools that have the potential to make a meaningful difference in the lives of our customers and the communities we serve in Maryland. This potential capital investment would improve system reliability and, most importantly, help customers conserve energy and lower their energy bills," said Kenneth DeFontes, president and CEO of BGE, in a release.

That consumers end up footing the bill is a common knock against smart-grid technology, but supporters of smart grids argue that the savings from lower energy bills outweigh any surcharge.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Buzzword: Power Factor

What it means. Power factor, a characteristic of alternating-current, or AC, circuits, is defined as the ratio of real power (what the end user consumes, measured in watts) to apparent power (what the utility company supplies, measured in volt-amperes).

Power factor is expressed as a number between 0.0 and 1.0. The higher the number, the better the power factor, with 0.85 and above being considered optimal.

An analogy might be helpful here: Let's say you're at your favorite watering hole and order a $4 pint of beer. To serve you a proper, full pint, the barkeep might end up dispensing a few extra ounces. You're not charged for that spillage—you pay for only the beer in the glass. (Yes, the bar accounts for waste.)

That's basically how things operate between you and your utility: You pay for real power (beer) and not apparent power (spillage). It's a different story at the commercial level, since utility companies may impose a penalty on industrial customers whose facilities have a low power factor. Many utilities will levy a surcharge if a company's power factor is less than 0.95, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Your utility company would prefer that your home have a 1.0 power factor, since it charges you only for real power

Why the buzz? Power factor is still mainly a concern for industrial clients, but it might creep into the residential sector. One reason for this is the low power factor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

For a 60-watt incandescent lightbulb with a 1.0 power factor, for instance, the utility generates 60 volt-amperes and the customer pays for 60 watts of power, according to lighting company Osram Sylvania. But for a 15-watt CFL with a 0.60 power factor, the utility must generate 25 volt-amperes, while the customer pays for 15 watts. (To get volt-amperes, divide watts by power factor.)

So when that 0.60-power-factor CFL over the course of time uses 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity, the utility would have to generate 1,667 volt-amperes to power it. (It costs American utility companies an average of 4 cents to produce a cost of a kilowatt-hour of electricity, according to the Edison Electric Institute.) Note that the average home has an overall power factor of about 0.90.

When you factor in the hundreds of billions of kilowatt-hours used by U.S. households each year, you can see why power companies would love to pass on some or all of the additional costs associated with power factor on to their customers.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: Check out these easy ways to cut energy use at home and learn about watt meters, which are marketed as energy-saving devices.