Nothing says Christmas quite like bright, twinkly fairly lights! You might go all Chevy Chase with a full outdoor display, or keep things minimal with just a few lights on the tree.
Whatever you decide, its worth knowing what kind of impact your Christmas lights will be having on the environment through their energy usage, and how much they're going to cost you.
It can be more damaging than you might think. If you leave your Christmas lights on for 10 hours a day over the 12 days of Christmas, enough carbon dioxide will be produced to inflate 64 balloons. If you've gone all out on an extravagant display, it can produce enough carbon dioxide to fill two double decker buses, or enough energy to heat the average home for up to six weeks!
Using incandescent bulbs as opposed to LEDs costs the UK an incredible £13 million extra a year in energy bills.
What measures can I take?
All is not lost. There's a few things you can do to start protecting the environment, and to save yourself some money in the long run.
Energy-saving bulbs might be more expensive at the point of purchase, but the long-term savings really do add up. Using an energy-saving bulb will save approximately £10 a year on your electricity bill. It doesn’t seem like much, but when you consider it lasts up to 12 times longer than a regular bulb, its a no-brainer.
The same applies to Christmas tree lights. The old fashioned incandescent bulbs can cost up to 90 times more to power than LED bulbs. This is because they have a filament and around 90% of the energy they produce is wasted as heat. Calculations from energy suppliers suggest that a string of 80 old-fashioned bulbs costs about 72p per string in electricity for the entire festive period while LED Christmas tree lights cost around 14p to light the tree for the same period.
If you're lighting up the whole house or garden, then the costs really start to add up. Older outdoor lights can cost well over £20 to run over Christmas, in comparison to only £0.18p for the newer lights.
Why not consider Solar-powered LED lights for outdoors? They can be a great alternative to traditional lights, and can still pick up enough solar energy even in the low-light winter months to produce wonderful, colourful LED displays!
If your Christmas is going to be merry and bright, you may as well make sure its energy efficient too...
