Member Article

Household Christmas lights guzzled more power than city displays over the festive period

You may have already packed away your Christmas lights, or like many, are still putting off the somewhat depressing task. What many haven’t yet realised though, and probably won’t until January’s electricity bill comes through, is that these beloved decorations have cost far more than originally bargained for.

Research undertaken by LUX365, into Christmas light displays around the UK and Ireland over the holidays revealed huge discrepancies in energy consumption. Private homes that were decked out with large numbers of Christmas lights actually consumed more power than many public displays.

The number of lamps in a city display varied widely and were anything from 50,000 - 750,000. In contrast, home displays had far fewer bulbs but many still reached and exceeded the 10,000 mark. However because they often use old-fashioned bulbs their energy consumption exceeded city displays’.

Those who thought they were getting a great deal by buying up ex-council lights likely used an older style of lighting, incandescent, which needs a lot more power to run. A display of 10,000 incandescent bulbs uses around 37,000W per hour - the same as putting the average dishwasher on for 29 hours. That is greater than every city surveyed, with the exception of London’s Oxford Street.

Those that had switched to LEDs needed a lot less energy to run their Christmas displays. Oxford Street boasted the greatest number of LED lamps in the UK with 750,000 making up 2017’s display of falling snowflakes. It took just 53,625W to power the snowflakes – only 16,625W more than an incandescent display of 10,000 bulbs which is 1.3% of the size.

This is because councils have been staggering the switch to energy-efficient LED displays over the last few years. Another city that had fully switched is Manchester whose 100,000 LEDs used just 7,150W.

Stephen Dearden, Director of WMB Ltd, whose company installed the Manchester Christmas Market lights said “All the lights in the Manchester display are now LED. It wasn’t an instant change and took significant planning to switch the incandescent lights out in stages over recent years, but it was time, maintenance was required, and the energy savings were too good to ignore. Since making the switch, the events team has been thrilled with the minimal maintenance required and the public’s reaction.”

Billy Knight, CEO at LUX365, said “All Christmas light displays, cities and households, will be fully LED in the future. They consume around eight times less power than incandescent bulbs, last longer, are more durable and have a better light quality than incandescents. LEDs are an all-round winner; they protect the environment, costs and now Christmas traditions too.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by LUX365 .