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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. Update – 2/10/11 – I’ve updated the sheet with more recent data. Home Depot changed the n:vision brand name to EcoSmart. I’m using EcoSmart bulbs for both CFL and LED because I can easily get them at Home Depot and I’ve been happy with the quality so far. The EcoSmart A19 LED I’m testing out is about 30% cheaper than the Pharox60 LED and has a higher light output.
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!
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.
Or he judged after 1 second.
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!!!
Why do comparisons of bulbs always negate the fact that CFLs have dire colour reproduction? The phosphors used to turn the florescent light source into something broader band only produce a small number of narrow bands of colour. Because the colour of objects is very narrow band by nature, a room lit by a CFL will look very unnatural – many objects will appear darker, or even appear as a completely different colour than they actually are because they can’t reflect the very specific wavelengths of the CFL. This is completely missed by simple lumens calculations and is precisely the reason why they make rooms look dreadful.
In comparison, an incandescent produces even intensity across the visible spectrum just as sunlight does. I’m all for energy saving but CFLs are not and never will be an adequate alternative.
That’s not true. I’m perfectly happy with the alternative that my CFLs offer, so I would say they are a more than adequate alternative.
How can you say that this comparrison is accurate if the “Lumens” on each bulb is not set to be equal?
The LED light is going to be half as bright as the incandescent. So if you double the LED ‘bulbs’ the cost doubles and the incandescent wins over the LED.
I know this is a “consumer out-of-pocket” excercise, but would be interesting is “apples-to-apples” (same amount of light, lumens) total cost expendatures. This means, all the way through production to the end of the life cycle costs, along with costs involved to the enviroment (toxic waste, …).
Great job. Probably time to update this though. The prices on LED lights have come down significantly. Home Depot is offering LED lights for under $20.
What is a very little amount of mercury when you multiply it times the millions of these bulbs that you know as well as i will be thrown away in land fills. Then lets think about the leach aid from the rain that washes off those landfills, Yep right in the water supply, nothing like mercury to help with birth defects in pregnet women..not to mention that it never leaves youre body, so what effect will that have on you..
I like the lights as much as anybody, but this seems like a bad idea??
What do you think coal power plants spew into the atmosphere? Part of their pollution is mercury.
All of the manufacturing processes for ALL of the bulbs spews toxins into the atmosphere. Why is it that you think no power is required to make a CFL bulb? This comparison is retarded. The manufacturing costs of CFL bulbs is WAY higher than that of an incandescent. If you want to do a comparison, compare them from the beginning of the manufacturing process, include import costs for CFL’s since they are not manufactured in the US, factor in mining costs and power consumption during this process for the phosphorous and mercury and then factor in the disposal costs of the toxic waste from bulb disposal and the waste from the manufacturing process…then you MIGHT get a close comparison.
Jason,
If you do all of the calculations I’ll be glad to add them in for those who are interested. I’m sure CFL manufacturing cost is WAY higher than CFL, but what percentage of manufacturing cost is lifetime energy costs? I look forward to your response.
that’s just silly, manufacturing costs are incorporated into purchase prices…companies don’t sell products at a loss – not for long anyway.
Has anyone found a CFL that doesn’t start up low brightness and gradually reach full brightness when warmed up? Besides the usually-too bright/cold color, this is the biggest drawback with CFLs.
(I tried replacing 3 65W recessed incand floods in my bathroom with some new “warm” n:vision 23 Watt Soft White CFLs…. They are about the same ‘warm’ color as incands, but when the switch first turns them on, they start way too dim– it immediately makes you look up (and notice the spiral cfl tubes behind the flood lenses.
Also, does anyone have a list of CFL that have a CCT of 2600-2700 AND CRI of 90+?
An interesting change since this was first published.
The CFL you linked to at Home Depot is now $10.97 each
while the LED you linked to is now $29.95
Changing the total cost to: CFL $42.38 and LED $38.71
Really awesome blog post.
Why do comparisons of bulbs always negate the fact that CFLs have dire colour reproduction? The phosphors used to turn the florescent light source into something broader band only produce a small number of narrow bands of colour. Because the colour of objects is very narrow band by nature, a room lit by a CFL will look very unnatural – many objects will appear darker, or even appear as a completely different colour than they actually are because they can’t reflect the very specific wavelengths of the CFL. This is completely missed by simple lumens calculations and is precisely the reason why they make rooms look dreadful.
I use CFL’s all over my house and they make the rooms look great. Maybe you are getting poorly manufactured CFLs or earlier models of CFLs. If you haven’t tried them lately, give them another shot, just make sure you get the right “color”. If you get a “bright white” CFL, then yes, it will make a room look bad. But if you get a “warm” CFL, it will look very close to a regular old incandescent.
I have been using CFL’s since they first came out but am about to change my ways. It takes energy to produce the CFL’s, energy to get them to the shelf and more to move them to my home where they quickly burn out. They cost more than the standard incandescent but don’t last half as long and many provide less than adequate lighting. I’m ready to try the LED’s which should drop in price as volume increases.
Rosaleen, Which brand of CFLs are you using? They may just be cheaply made. I do agree with you on LEDs though. The LED I’m testing out has performed wonderfully and it was only $10 (with the cost dropping constantly).
We have CFLs in a room where the lights are turned on for only a short time. Does it take more electricity to turn on a CFL or an incandescent? Would appreciate an answer
It may take a little more on the CFL, but it’s such a small quantity and so short of time (like micro-seconds) that it is negligible in comparison.
older cfl’s take MUCH longer to ‘warm up’ (I have 2 older NOS bulbs that take about 5 minutes to get up to full light) whereas the new ‘instant on’ bulbs take just a few seconds (still a lot longer than incandecents, but much better than in years past.
I am looking at replacing incandescent dock lights with either CFL or LED and they must be shatter resistant, anyone have any experience with either of these and what about trying to reach the front of a 53′ semi trailer?
Hi Brad,
I am an electrical contractor and now an LED importer. The technology is changing everyday and we have done multiple retofits in different applications including industrial and commercial. We do have a 30 watt LED that has a 15 degree beam angle that has a light beam that reaches up to 60 feet. We are installing them on the exterior of a bank building. We have one up now and it looks and performs great.
Are we all so caught up in feeling good about being “Green” that we completely negate the future feelings of what it will be like to pay more for drinking water than we do for gasoline? That’s right everyone, Mercury is a poison. Perhaps Edison was right in the first place? CFL’s are what happen when you allow government to run your lives. Good luck with all your “Feelings” of saving the planet. Such small thinkers, tisk tisk. I am burning all incan’s and have enough stashed away to last me a lifetime. One thing for certain I will be greener than all of you CFL lovers.
Hey Jackson….do tell me what part of the country you live in? Unless it’s the Northwest, I’m guessing the majority of your electricity comes from coal. From this link from Popular Mechanics comparing Mercury emitted from incandescent vs. CFLs:
Don’t be so smug next time.
There you go again Chris, with the same uneducated reply…
There is something just a bit hypocritical in stating that the carbon footprint of CFLs is less than that of incandescent light bulbs, if one looks at the manufacturing processes of both.
Incandescents have a much shorter material list than CFLs. Also factor in the cost of special cradle-to-grave handling and disposal/recycle for CFLs, besides the labor involved in twisting the glass by hand, manufacturing, gathering and soldering the discrete electronic components and hazards involved in coating the glass with phosphors and adding the mercury and other toxic gasses.
No CFLs are manufactured in the Americas or Europe. Why? The health standards for manufacturing are not as strict. All are manufactured in either China or India. Factor in overseas shipping and handling expenses.
Now that you have that long list, figure the carbon footprints.
Incandescents are becoming more efficient as well (GE ceramic technology from 2007).
At the moment, incandescents create 5-10% light and 90-95% of the energy input goes to heat. With CFLs, 25% of the energy input goes towards making light and 75% goes to heat. CLFs are between 10-15% more “energy efficient”, while using as much as 75% less electricity, using sophisticated electronics.
The total energy input for the production of a CFL light bulb comes to 1.7kWh compared to 0.3kWh for a single incandescent light bulb.
Note: Not included in the manufacturing costs for CLFs are the mining of materials associated with the various phosphors or the mercury. Nor are transportation costs factored in (imports).
“8 grammes of waste are produced in the manufacture of the incandescent, but 128 grammes are produced in the manufacture of a Compact fluorescent of which 78 grammes are hazardous.”
(Original information derived from spreadsheets prepared for the European Parliament Energy savings committee.)
Going with a lifecycle approach is indeed an excellent way to fairly compare lighting technologies.
CFLs do cost more to produce, and certainly generate more toxic waste in production and disposal.
But we need to actually put some numbers on this – from peer-reviewed, published research. Otherwise, we’re just waving our hands.
A quick web search pulls up the following report from the Rocky Mountain Institute (a research outfit focused on market-based solutions to problems of sustainability). While I cock an eye at some parts, the whole is fair-minded and (within its design parameters) rigorous.
http://old.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Climate/C08-02_CFL_LCA.pdf
Some relevant numbers:
“Ninety-three percent of the CO2e emissions from a CFL lamp occur
during the operation phase, while approximately 7 percent occur during assembly” (page 12)
“Quantifying this in the LCA for the required lumen-hours (1,600 lumens for 10,000 hours),
incandescents emit 16 mg into the air during operation while CFLs only emit 4.6 mg.
Another 5 mg of mercury is added to the CFL’s total if it ends up in a landfill (the worst case
scenario), which brings the total mercury emissions for the CFL to 9.6 mg. This is still 6.4 mg less
than what would be released when using an incandescent.”
[ed note: the report gives some additional details on this important issue starting on page 17. Note in particular that, while 100% of incandescent mercury pollution goes airborne, less than 20% of CFL's does.]
But the news isn’t uniformly good for CFLs. On page 13, the report details that producing countries suffer more lead and arsenic pollution from CFL manufacture. This is the same sort of pollution generated from the manufacture of integrated circuits in general, which are used in hundreds of thousands of applications, so it’s hard to decide how much additional blame to place on this particular one.
The report goes on to see what happens when CFLs are turned off and on frequently. It’s not pretty, but incandescents are still losers in cost, CO2 output, and mercury.
One thing I notice in all the posts is the fact that no one has mentioned the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the CFL bulbs,it is high compared to the other bulbs and does have a negative effeft on the body,especially if sitting close to the bulb.Something to consider in your choice of lighting.
Ken, I haven’t much looked into that issue. Do you have any information or links to other sources?
I have looked into it because I do some research before I go drinking the kool-aid…and I’ll be quoting…from my research.
“Most CFLs have a claimed power factor of around 0.52 (where the figure is given at all), so a 15W CFL will actually draw just under 29VA. Because the load is not linear, the current waveform is in phase with the applied voltage, but is discontinuous. This simply means that current is only drawn at the peak of the waveform, and this effect causes a poor power factor just as readily as a phase shift between voltage and current.
The nasty waveform created by CFLs is another thing that is going to come back and bite us on the bum. Any spike waveform means that significant harmonics are added to the mains waveform, and although CFLs are only a small percentage of ‘nasty waveform generators’ at present, the situation will get a lot worse.
An anecdote on the power factor issue was sent to me … Apparently a company in the UK installed a large number of CFLs in a building where the lighting was primarily on one phase. It burnt out the neutral link in the fuse box and caused a small fire! The high peak current of all non-power factor corrected CFLs can cause problems where they are used in large numbers. For example, 25 x 75W (incandescent) lamps will draw 7.8A – just within the 8A rating for lighting circuits in Australia. The power factor is 1 because of the resistive load. If replaced by 25 x 13W CFLs, although the RMS current is lower, the peak current is over 10A (based on the 410mA peak current). No problem at all so far, but …
What if the installer decides that many more lamps can be connected to the circuit because of the lower power? Based on the claimed RMS current for a typical 13W CFL (~95mA is typical), it would seem that you can run 80 CFLs on the same lighting circuit (80 x 95mA = 7.6A). Unfortunately, the peak current is 80 x 410mA = 32.8A. The wiring won’t overheat, but in-line connections (junction boxes), switches and other terminations may fail because they are expected to handle the high peak current continuously – well above their design ratings (especially if a connection is very slightly loose). Remember too that the switch-on surge (inrush current) will be many times higher again – if we assume only 4A (fairly low in reality), the first cycle inrush current could be as high as 320A if all lamps are turned on at once!”
” Power Factor
CFLs work best if left on for over 15 minutes at a time. Saving electricity by turning off CFLs shortens the life of the lamp. How is that efficient? Answer: It is not.
Most CFLs do not work with Dimmer circuits. In fact it can be dangerous to operate standard CFLs on a domestic dimmer, either or both the lamp and dimmer can dangerously overheat! Standard domestic dimmers are a bit of a bodge. They rely on the resistive path of the incandescent lamp to provide a neutral path for the dimmer’s electronics. This doesn’t exist in a CFL. You will find that even CFLs designed for dimming do not respond perfectly, many will flicker badly when turned down and none will dim smoothly to extinction. They rely on a further bodge in electronics to make them wok at all!
I get you don’t like CFL. So what LEDs have you tried? In many cases, they are the better investment over incandescent. If you dont like either of those, what about halogen?
I like the Cree CR6 and will be installing them for all recessed lighting in my new home, due for completion around end of June 2011. Apparently, a warm bulb exists that we will most likely be using. It’s been a while since I looked at them, but I think you can get either 3500K or 2700K with regard to spectrum.
This seems a convincing review of the electricity quality issue.
http://ecmweb.com/lighting/hidden_costs_cfls_0109/index1.html
Takeaway message is that, yes the problem exists and electrical engineers ought to pay attention to it, but a) utility companies, while actively considering this problem, aren’t tremendously worried about it, and b) CFL manufacturers can produce higher-grade ballasts if utility companies ever need them to – and still produce light bulbs that save home consumers a bundle over keeping incandescents.
[...] to die) so the quality between manufacturers is going to vary, but as we’ve shown on our lighting calculator they are an excellent [...]
Some points not mentioned; The available prescriptive rebate from utilities – they could
result in a $25 incentive / rebate for LEDs. The factor of lumen depreciation in either lamps is
a variable that affects the ROI rationale.How the’re used affects performance over time.
What about Lumeniares using AC/leds ex( Molex – Borealis- etc) They show multiple levels of approach and design superiority – lamps like this should be tested – the LED lamps designs are several years old by now, the componentry of the LEDs has been getting better over the last 3 or 4 seasons so will these comparisions be valid in 1 year?Were the tests for illumenance and ray tracing
done- Meh kind of a light weight – light comparison
Great blog. Looks like we have to hope LED’s come down in price and in life cycle costs. They appear to be easy to manufacture and less of a threat to the environment.
[...] can make sense (especially when compared against incandescent). But at almost$60 per bulb the savings just aren’t there right now (compared to 60 W incandescent based on 3 hrs/day over 10 year timeframe; this is not the case for [...]