Family Finance Help

Normally you would expect an article like this to begin with some anodyne waffle by way of introduction before eventually getting round to presenting a vaguely plausible argument in support of the title. However, I don’t have the time right now and frankly don’t see the need either. The facts speak for themselves, so let’s start by assaulting you with a load of numbers.

A typical mains powered halogen lamp (as commonly found recessed into ceilings) consumes 50 watts, can be purchased for about 2, lasts up to 2,000 hours, and will cost 12 to run for those 2,000 hours. The running cost is worked out using the standard rate of 0.12 per kWh and assumes modest average use of 3 hours per day which equates to roughly 1,000 hours per year.

An LED replacement for the halogen lamp (a high quality, near identical performance product similar to the Sharp Zenigata for example) will today cost 24 but uses only 4W and lasts for over 40,000 hours, and over the same 2,000 hours runs up an electricity bill of 0.96.

Looks like the LED has priced itself out due to the much higher purchase cost, doesn’t it? But let’s add a bit more “real world” perspective into this picture.

To begin with, to compete against the lifespan of a single LED requires replacing the halogen 20 times, which brings the true purchase price up to 40 (20 x 2) which is nearly double the LED’s 24 price tag.

Secondly, if we run our comparison using the life span of the LED instead of the woefully short-lived halogen we see that where the LED uses just 19.20 worth of electricity, the halogen burns its way through 240.

As a final step, let’s now add together the running costs over 40,000 hours with the “real” purchase prices, and immediately it’s clear that the total bill for the LED will be 43.20 as compared to 280 for the halogen lamp (and its many replacements). If you thought this would be an exercise in scraping out 10% or even 50% savings, think again – the numbers do not deceive, halogen lamps cost 1000% more than LED equivalents.

Even allowing for the initial purchase costs, halogen lighting is comfortably in excess of 700% more expensive. People tend to attach weight to upfront costs and are reluctant to spend 12 times as much to purchase an LED, yet as the above illustration shows the halogen’s combined repeat-purchase costs are double those of the LED and for operating costs it’s a monster. LED lighting is a different ball game altogether – notice for example that in this scenario the LED’s purchase price exceeds its lifetime electricity costs.

Of course, this is a very scaled down example applied to one little-used light bulb. I have just walked from my North facing kitchen where 10 down lights are almost permanently on from 7:00 A.M. to midnight, thru a hall with little natural light and 4 more halogen lamps, into my office where a further 6 glow maybe 6 hours a day.

Just this little lot therefore clock up between them slightly over 100,000 hours annually ((6 * 6 * 365) + (10 * 17 * 365) + ((4 * 17 * 365)) which would present a bill of 600 (50w * 100000 hours * (0.12/1000)) using halogen lamps, but instead comes in at a much more agreeable 48 with LED lights. And that’s just for these 3 rooms.

Let’s examine some slightly more real world examples where artificial light operates almost constantly (hospitals, hotels, shops, offices, airports etc). Stir in some currency symbols and presto, simple mathematics is transformed into economics and all of a sudden we’re talking really big bucks.

We have already established that the purchase cost difference between the two gets cancelled out about halfway through the lifespan of the LEDs and that over time it’s actually much cheaper to buy 1 LED rather than replace a halogen lamp 20 times. We also now know that halogen lamps cost 12 times as much to run as equivalent LEDs. So why then would anyone choose NOT to switch to LED?