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I'm confused. The story talks about manufacturing and transport. However, I don't care about that. As a consumer, I want to know $/lumen. That's it. The la
by jpollock 13y ago
I'm confused. The story talks about manufacturing and transport. However, I don't care about that.
As a consumer, I want to know $/lumen. That's it.
The last time I looked, the energy savings for LED were swamped by the upfront purchase costs. CFLs were still significantly cheaper.
Of course, that's for NZ, and the US might be different.
NZ Prices from Consumers NZ (Bulb + Running over 5 years)
Incandescent: $115
CFL: $30
LED: $95 (60W equiv), or $57 (40W equiv)
- tanzam75 13y agoWhat year are the numbers from? I have a hard time believing that New Zealand pays 3x as much for its LEDs as the United States does. 800-lumen LEDs are already down to $15-20 unsubsidized in the United States. Some utilities also provide a subsidy for each LED. Granted, the 10-watt LED does not save you much in power costs over the 13-watt CFL of equivalent brightness. However, the LED is already cheap enough to be a viable replacement for incandescents in bathrooms, and other areas where high cycling rates will kill CFLs.
- jpollock 13y agoThose numbers are NZD, and from less than 2 months ago. :) To convert to USD, multiply by 0.8. I just looked on the home hardware website, and they don't sell any MR16s that are more than 6.5W. The 12W bulb is a 650 lumen and sells for NZ$13. However, a CFL goes for less than NZ$4. That $9 will buy you a lot of electricity. At 3hrs/day, and NZ$0.25/kwh, that's a break even point of ~5.5 years... I think... (6W difference in power usage between CFL and LED?) Going from a 20W halogen to a 10W led would result in a payback period of 3 years. To me, these sorts of things need to pay off in their warranty period. :)