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LED, Incandescent, CFL
Between Incandescents, CFLs, and LEDs, there are many different lighting options available for the homeowner. The problem is that there are so many options, the energy-saving technology keeps improving, and costs keep adjusting. I’ve done a cost comparison between incandescents and CFLs that showed how much better an investment CFLs were. Since then, a few models of LEDs are available for the home and I have now included them in a cost comparison.
Until someone proves me wrong, I’m convinced the spreadsheet below is one of the best lighting cost comparisons on the web. I’ve put in some reference data for each bulb so you can verify the data. For the incandescent, I included a GE long-life 60-watt bulb. I’m using the n:vision CFL’s I use in my house which are still working flawlessly and out of probably 15 bulbs I haven’t had 1 failure in 1.5 years. Finally, for the LED I’m comparing the newly released Pharox60, 6 watt dimmable LED by Lemnis Lighting and Digital Light.
The cells in yellow are meant to be edited by you based on your situation. The cells in green are current prices for the lights I’m comparing in the sheets. If you find better prices or want to compare different lights, adjust these prices accordingly.
The first thing to notice is the Lumens (light output) of each bulb. The CFL uses less energy than the incandescent, but puts out more light! And while the LED uses less energy than the other bulbs, it puts out 2.5 times less light than the CFLs! According to my sheets, it would take almost 30 Years before a current investment in an LED bulb would turn out to be the better investment over a CFL. Now, that’s based on an electricity price of $.010/kWh, and if you pay more than that, LEDs look a little more attractive.
Since LEDs have such a high initial cost, it is very hard to re-coup that cost over the life of the bulb. The other issue is how much less light they put out compared to the incandescent or CFL. What I will say is that if you are reluctant to adopt CFLs in your house due to concerns over mercury (even though it is a very minuscule), then the LEDs could be a great alternative to incandescents. Since incandescents use so much electricity (most of the energy that goes into them turns into heat), the payback of an LED at .10 cents per kWh is around 5 years when compared to the incandescent.
The important thing to take away from the sheet is how bad a monetary investment incandescents are and how much energy they use compared to CFL and LED technologies. It’s time to get away from 100 year old energy-wasting technology and start saving your home money and helping to waste less energy!
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Dear Sir or Madame,
Very good that this is on the www for comparison.
Did you also take in account that most of the LED lamps use a lot of blind current?
Most LED suppliers don’t mention that in there specs.
With kind regards,
Potter
Potter, What do you mean when you say “blind current”? Do you mean in-rush current?
Chris,
In Dutch we call it “blindstroom”.
Reactief vermogen (blind vermogen)
Het reactieve vermogen (Pr) (eenheid voltampère reactief, VAR) geeft de activiteit van de reactanties aan. Het reactieve vermogen is voor een sinusvormige spanning en stroom:
Hi Chris,
See also this link:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_reactive_power
Potter is right.Blind current is Reactive Current.I measured performance of a 5WLED lamp supposed to replace 40W Incandescent bulb.It actually consumed 44milliAmps at 220Volts equivalent to 9.6W.This indicates high harmonics and poor pf uncorrectable by external means.The Lumen output also didnot compare well with distribution of A type Bulb or the latest draft of DOE standards.More tests will be done.Variation of supply voltage between 150V to 270V common in our country also showed 10% change in Power and Light output.It is not known whther this will effect the life of LED.
In a commercial setting you need to account for the labor to replace the CFL bulbs. Also LED lumens are focused lumens where as CFL/incans are 360 degrees so in this sense the lighting is more efficient because you can put it just where you want it.
We just installed our first CFL. It was to replace the 60W kitchen light over the sink which just burned out. We installed a 20W CFL – the box said it was equivalent to 75 W incandescent, but it seems more like 40W.
Not happy with these at all.
SteveH,
What brand of CFLs are they? I use the n:vision, and the 12 Watt CFLs I use to replace my 60 watt incandescent actually put out more light than the incandescent. You may just have a bad brand of bulb.
A great analysis.
Please, however, make this change: try *not* rounding up on the number of bulbs. This gives us an average, which is what we’re really looking for; otherwise we create rounding error, which is small for the N=10 case, but large for the N=1 or N=2. The results I get are quite different for total cost:
Incandescent: $90.52
CFL: $22.57
LED: $20.44
I was just going over some research in camparisons of LED and CFL bulbs. One major flaw is that the way in which these bulbs are measured is not typically done by say a “footcandle” or “Lux” so the results of lumen rating is based on an average of all sides of the light. This is fine if you are using these bulbs for say a lamp, but in the case of say using them in recessed lighting LEDs can actually produce a higher efficiancy (depending on bulb choice of course) without the loss of light through the “sides” of the bulbs as it would not be seen. LEDs, while maybe not quite the right choice for everyone yet, are a great choice in the right situations and with the technology advancing rapidly will be a cost effective, “green”, choice for everyone….soon. I definately suggetst looking up research done that states how the data was collected if looking into this field, and as a consumer, the best way is to of course see side by side comparisons to make your own judgement on color and brightness vs. cost efficiancy for yourself.
….also, I belive last months, maybe two months ago “Consumer Reports,” did a fairly interesting comparison on these types of bulbs including common name brands you can purchase at local stores. Worth taking a look at.
NerdKing,
I got that issue of Consumer Reports. It was a good one. They had a whole section on energy conservation and a section on heating your home with wood pellets.
I recently visited some LED manufacturers in China and they are deff. advancing the LED technology. I thought the most spectacular application was a 10,000 lumen LED street light which consumed about 8 times less power then the sodium filament. Also very promising are LED floods, spots, tubes and shop lights. Also read the new report out from OSRAM that takes into consideration cradle-to-grave energy use for CFL, Incandescent and LED.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/energy-environment/30led.html
I have been doing a whole section on CFL lighting, and like most have switched the obvious bulbs in our apartment. But I was having trouble with the A19 and candelabra bulbs, mostly as I could not find the right sizes, and when I could they were at a silly price.
PS – We are required to make good financial decisions, as well as good green decisions – refer Chris’s home page introduction.
All changed when I located a new supplier, ordered and replaced the final 12 offenders in our apartment.
I have written a post at open4energy called Do Compact Fluorescent Bulbs really Save Energy and in it I have included a graph of the energy use across our two bedrooms and the bathroom, with the old bulbs, and then with the new bulbs.
I encourage anyone to visit Wholesale Bulbs when on our page – you will see their adverts – importing directly from China and selling over the web. The latest T2 technology, 25% less mercury, a full range of light temperatures, and an amazing selection of fittings.
Thanks for the comparisom. The thing missing for me was a break-even comparisom, that showed after what time a CFL or LED is better than Incandescant
I’ve created a new spreadsheet (based on the one above) and its at http://www.mitra.biz/blog/archives/2009/12/cost_comparison.html. Which shows (at 4 hours/day usage) LED’s beat Incandescent after 4 years, but CFL’s are better than all of them from year 1, it takes 30 years for LED’s to beat CFL’s but then need replacing after year 35.
Obviously this depends on assumptions about inflation in electricity prices, so I’ve added a second tab, where I assume electricity inflates at 7% more than general inflation. This isn’t unreasonable, for example NSW in Australia just authorised 60% over next 4 years.
Thanks for the comment and graph shown on your website. I think LEDs still have a way to go before they become a clear winner over CFLs, but in either case, they are both better than incandescents!
We are manufacturer of LED lights in China. Yes, we agree the Reactive Current. A bulb from us marked as 6W, acctually will cost around 9W power. There is a saying of “consume power” & “output power”. Here, 6W is output power while 9W is consume power. This is normal, as all we know that “conservation of energy”. Some current were changed to the heat.
Most time, when some factory want to upgrade its power, then he marks his “consume power” as power. Because there is a wrong acknowlege on the LED market that more power, more light. And with this wrong idea, some consumers will like to buy a more powerful LED light. Actually, it is wrong. For a LED, more Lumen output, more light.
In our factory, we mark the “output power” as power. We think this is what the consumer need to know. But from here, I get to know maybe some one like to know the consumer power for a LED.
So, pls ask your vender is the power marked shows a “consume power” or “output power”. Then you will know the truth before buying.
Last, this is Redy from Eltlite.com
336 lumens LED vs 900 lumens CFL. I doubt the LED would be tolerable in comparison. Especially for reading.
We have a small office in the city and the electricity bill is insane. Tell you what, we have tried to turn off the all the electric juice sucking machines, but not really see much of the difference in the bills. But, one day our plaza electrician told me that they are changing all the LED light tubes outside the plaza. Those LED lights look the same as the old light tube but after that we don’t think we see the electrician for months until people complaint about other problems. We tried using the LED light tubes and we are so damn glad we did. We already have the electric bill saving to pay off the LED lights that we got. Awesome product!!!