CFLs or LEDs?
By Karina | September 28, 2009
I am admittedly very fascinated by the light bulb options out there. Partly it’s because I feel so invested! I was an early adopter of CFLs and even though the technology has improved like gangbusters since they were first introduced I am constantly reassuring people that no, they don’t flicker, yes, they are easy on the eyes, no, they don’t need a warm-up period before they go on. Throw in a little discussion on the whole mercury issue, and it seems I really DO spend a lot of time thinking about these things!
Of course though I’m quite educational when it comes to CFLs, I am really interested in LED bulbs – they’re super efficient and sort of gadgety, which I love. They’ve been so expensive though! Bulbs could typicially cost between 50 to 100 dollars. Depsite that, when I read great reviews like this one I start filling up virtual shopping carts with LED bulbs – only to bail at the last minute.
The price point of LEDs is a serious impediment to most people. To solve this problem, the Department of Energy put out a ($10 Million!) prize for the invention of an AFFORDABLE LED lightbulb, and Phillips has actually come up with something that they think may fly. But the end goal is to come up with an LED light that can be sold for about $20, and frankly, that’s still a lot of clams for a new technology that people are not entirely sure about. It’s easy to spend a few dollars on a CFL even if you don’t know if you’ll like it, but the reason I haven’t tried out an LED lightbulb yet is because they’re just so darn pricy. Right now we have a mish-mosh of CFLs and a couple (about 5%?) of incandescents in our home, and when I say mish-mosh I mean that exactly. We have a range of brands and some work better than others, to be sure. I would LOVE to have more reliable bulbs that I love, and I really think LEDs are going to be the right way to go – but I don’t want to make a blind leap into a $50 bulb that I may not like very much in the end.
Regardless, though, there are energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs in the USA that will “render most incandescent bulbs unmarketable by 2014. ” And that means that we’ll have to figure out our best replacements sooner or later, even if they are on the hunt for more efficient incandescents. I just hope the technology keeps pace with this energy efficiency standard, and that we have lots of good options to choose from.
So what do you think? What’s standing in your way of implementing a more efficient lightbulb?
[[Photo from flickr user km6xo via creative commons license.]]
Topics: General, Home | 5 Comments »
A relatively easy way to decide is to make it a costing exercise. I actually have a spreadsheet in front of me that I use for a lecture which introduces the concept of thinking in life cycles that compares CFLs, incandescents and LEDs in terms of total lifetime cost.
It allows you to make a wide range of assumptions about purchase price, power consumption, bulb replacement, electricity price, and usage. A functionally equivalent LED bulb (60W inc., 14W CFL, Edison socket) is hard to find, and the prices are all over the place. But, even in really heavy usage scenarios (24 hrs/day for 10 years), it’s hard to make the LED worth it, although you could add in the “externalities” of power production with a higher $/kWh charge, and that makes things slightly better.
The bottom line, literally in this case, is that CFLs are the better option. LEDs need to be at about $10/bulb to compete.
thanks Joe! do you think that the externalities of people actually enjoying the light factor in to that price point? I know it seems like most people love to hate on the CFL light quality.
You could, but not in any way that would affect the up-front cost. You would have to show them the total cost, and then ask if they would be willing to pay the difference in cost for the “increased” light quality.
As an example, a scenario which uses the bulbs 4 hrs/day for 4 years at $0.11/kWh means that the total cost of the incandescent is about $30 more than the CFL.
The question to the CFL hater is, “Is the light quality of the incandescent worth $30 to you?” If the price of the bulb was $30.39 instead of $0.39, would you still buy it?
[...] Tiny Choices talks CFLs and LEDs. [...]
I have a few incandescents, a lot of CFLs of varying quality, and a few LEDs. The LED lightbulbs were expensive, but we wanted to try them.
My review:
Weird Lighting, compared to what we’re used to. Could get accustomed to it.
Not diffuse enough for rooms (better for focused lighting like reading lamps, flashlights).
Dim.
So there you go. Wait a bit, is my feeling.