Save Money By Replacing Halogen Spot Lights With LED Equivalents
If you were anticipating a typical “how to” piece, you know the type, long on bland verbiage and short on factual information that scarcely manages to argue the case suggested by the title, then you’re in for a let down (or an unexpected surprise, depending on your viewpoint). I really can’t be bothered and quite honestly I hardly need to write anything at all – the numbers say it all, so let’s get stuck in.
The average mains powered GU10 halogen down light (as very commonly seen fitted into ceilings) can be bought for around 2, uses 50 watts of electrical power and has a lifespan of about 2,000 hours over which time it will have cost 12 in electricity to operate. This is based on the average price of 0.12 per kWh and having the light on for a mere 3 hours a day (which works out at close to 1,000 hours over the course of a year).
An equivalent GU10 format LED (in other words a quality LED such as Sharp’s Zenigata that is functionally almost identical) requires just 4W and will run for 40,000 hours or more; the purchase price is at the moment 24 but over 2,000 hours it costs just 0.96 in electricity to run.
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.
First, over the full lifespan of that one LED you will have to replace your halogen lamp 20 times, so the purchase costs now look like 40 for the halogen lamp(s) versus 24 for the LED.
Second, if we view things over the lifespan of the LED rather than the feeble lifetime of the halogen then we incur running costs of 240 for the halogen compared to 19.20 for the LED.
Lastly, let’s also account for that “real” difference in purchase price; so over 40,000 hours a single halogen (plus its 19 replacements) will run up a bill of 280 but swapping it for an LED will instead incur a total of 43.20. Forget looking for 10% savings here or 25% there, we’re staring at the reality that halogen lamps are over 1000% (yes, one thousand percent) more expensive to own and run than equivalent LEDs.
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?