How Much Electricity Do Christmas Lights Demand?

It’s time to decorate for the holidays! If you’re anything like Clark Griswold in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, you know that more is better. But what you may not realize is how high your energy bills will be for December. Let’s talk about how much electricity Christmas lights use and what factors affect energy usage.

All those little twinkling lights use a lot more energy than we realize. The United States uses 6.63 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually to power holiday lights — enough energy to operate 14 million refrigerators!

Look For Energy Star Rated Lighting

Factors That Impact Holiday Light Energy Usage

Sure, all those holiday lighting displays are festive and merry, but they cost a lot of money to operate! Here are some factors that determine energy costs over the holidays.

• The size of your home. How large or small your home is will directly correlate to your energy usage. It’s a simple concept: it takes more lights to cover a large home than a small home, so it stands to reason you will consume less energy if you have a small home.
• How many strands you plan to hang. To save money on energy bills, consider hanging fewer strands of lights this year.
• The type of lights you have. Not all holiday lights are created equal. Some use up less energy than others. For instance, a strand of 100 incandescent mini light bulbs uses up about 40 watts of electricity, whereby LED bulbs use a lot less. You could spend the same to illuminate 7,200 LED bulbs as you would to power 25 C9 bulbs.
• How long you keep the lights on each day. The longer the lights operate, the more energy they will suck up. Don’t keep them on all day. Turn them on at dusk and shut them off before bed.

Tips to Reduce Energy Consumption

Heed these tips so you can better control the costs you incur with your Christmas lights:

• Use LED Christmas lights instead. They will cost you more up front to buy them but they require less energy and will last a lot longer than incandescent bulbs.
• Try fiber optic trees and decorations, which are far more energy-efficient.
• Use a timer that controls the time period in which you run your lights. Program them to go on at nightfall and switch off at bedtime.
• Don’t use other outdoor lights when running your holiday lights, which do a good enough job of illuminating your house on their own.

Lighting, St Louis, St Chalres & O'fallon, MO

If you want to have the most impressive holiday light display in the neighborhood this month, you need the help of a qualified electrician in St. Charles Mo. Just contact us at 636-294-8562 to get a free quote. We can make sure your electrical panel can handle all your holiday lighting intentions this year. Let us take a look and perform an upgrade if necessary!