Calculate LED Lighting Savings with the LED Savings Calculator

Remember when household lighting held few options? It was fluorescent tubes, incandescent lighting or nothing. One of the most exciting changes to home lighting came with the innovation of downlights. New houses all over Australia were adopting downlights as the newest in lighting technology.

As a result, there are millions of low voltage halogen downlights installed in Australian homes. As with all things though, what was once new becomes old, and halogen downlights are now considered to be old technology and an energy-inefficient form of lighting for homes.

Energy efficient lighting is becoming of increasing interest to householders as power bills rise. Lighting is generally considered to be responsible for only a small proportion of household electricity usage in total, however changes in lighting can create significant savings.

Innovation in lighting technology means there are energy efficiency and cost saving advantages to be gained with different lighting choices. However, it can be confusing to know what to do, at what cost, and whether the cost will be offset in savings.

Let’s look at potential energy savings with LED lighting.

Energy Efficient Lighting

The term ‘low voltage’ is not ‘low usage’ when it comes to electricity. In the case of halogen downlights, ‘low voltage’ actually means high usage, and they are now considered to be one of the highest consumers of residential power.

The most efficient lighting available today is LED (light-emitting diode). LED is still relatively new, and its pricing might make it seem costly when compared to other forms of lighting. However LED lights will significantly reduce power bills and maintenance.

The next best form of energy efficient lighting is considered to be CFL (compact fluorescent lights).

The worst performing in terms of energy efficiency are fluorescent tubes, halogen and incandescent, respectively.

Replacing Halogen Downlights

If you have one of the many homes fitted with halogen downlights (which each have their own transformers), your conversion choices include:

  • switching fittings with CFL globes
  • switching fittings with LED globes
  • Retaining existing transformers but switching to LED globes
  • Switching to new transformers and LED globes

The options which include switching fittings require all light fittings to be replaced, some wiring modifications and new globes to generate power savings. The power savings are dependent on the globe, whether CFL or LED.

Many in the industry consider the options to retro fit LED globes into an existing downlight to be a ‘band-aid’ rather than a solution like a dedicated LED fitting.

The different levels of work and the costs associated with changing to LED globes need to be considered with the advice of an electrician, and if you are on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, our Everest Electrical team are happy to help.

In fact, with the introduction of our LED Savings Calculator, we have made this one step simpler for consumers.

LED Savings Calculator

The main driver to switch lighting is the cost of electricity. Calculating how much you can save on your bill by replacing your old downlights though is not easy for most consumers. That is why we have created and installed an LED Calculator here on our website.

The LED Calculator is a simple-to-use tool for consumers – all you need to know is the number of downlights in your home. Enter this figure into the box provided before clicking the button to calculate savings.

The calculator output displays by globe type the estimated total cost per year and the cost comparison to LED lighting. The calculation is based on the current cost of electricity, 12 hours per day usage and globe wattage. The figures used in the calculation are shown below the output table.

Any savings advice will only ever be indicative because it will always be dependent on your individual use patterns. However, the calculator provides a clear indication of the extreme cost difference between LED and other forms of globes.

LED Calculator Test Run

When taking our LED Calculator for a test run, a single click of the button showed that switching 20 downlights to LED could save up to $3,175 per year.

The output from the calculator shows 20 LED downlights have an estimated total cost per year of under $200 and that the other globes were from three to twenty times that cost.

With the increasing cost of power and the focus in many households turning to energy savings, a switch to LED globes could be a significant cost saver. So if you have downlights, we invite you to use our LED Calculator at led-calculator to estimate these savings.