The 22.8-year switch: GE's Energy Smart LED

Dec 20, 2010 By Matt Hickman
The 22.8-year switch: GE's Energy Smart LED Enlarge

As the common household incandescent bulb marches towards extinction (they'll be completely phased out in the U.S. by 2014), the "battle of the bulb" heats up with CFLs, LEDs, and a new long-lasting contender, the ESL bulb, vying to take its place and usher in a new era of energy-efficient lighting.

GE just announced the release of the Energy Smart , a new omni-directional, 9-watt bulb designed to replace the common 40-watt used in bedside and table lamps. According to GE, the life of the Energy Smart LED is 25,000 hours or 22.8 years (based on three hour/day usage) and offers a 77 percent when compared to 40-watt incandescent bulbs. It's also the first A-Line LED bulb to receive an EnergyStar rating.

The price? Brace yourself: The Energy Smart LED sells for $50. It's admittedly a daunting price to pay for a single that will live (and perhaps outlive) your bedside lamp, but when you do the math (which GE has thankfully done for us: www.gelighting.com/na/energysmartLED/math.html) the dramatic cost becomes easier to swallow. With an estimated yearly cost of $1.08 versus $4.82 for a 40-watt incandescent (based on $.11 per kilowatt hour), a single Energy Smart LED can save homeowners $85 over the lifetime over the bulb.

Learn more about this innovative 40-watt substitute over at GE's Energy Smart LED mini-site, www.gelighting.com/na/energysmartLED/home.html , where you can also purchase the bulb now. Or, wait until January when the Energy Smart LED hits retail shelves.

Explore further: Hong Kong launches first electric taxis

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(c) 2010, Mother Nature Network.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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that_guy
1 / 5 (1) Dec 20, 2010
They have helpfully left out that a CFL would be $1.30 a year to operate at those assumptions, costing and extra $4.84 over the lifetime of the energy smart led. however, a 4 pack of cfl's with 24,000 hours of life (6,000 hours each) costs $10.

Don't make the LED an economic argument. If you use florescent, you will save $35 over the lifetime of the light due to the ridiculous initial cost of the LED.

until LEDs are reasonably priced and designed, it is only an environmental argument, due to the mercury in florescents.
caeman
not rated yet Dec 20, 2010
That is a bit dishonest not to include the cost of the light bulb in the total-life cost. $50 over 22.8 years is roughly $2.19 a year. Add in $1.08 for electricity, and the annual cost is $3.27. Ye Olde Incandescent's are cheap, dirt cheap. With an estimated 1000 to 2000 hours, at $1 each, the cost-savings of the LED bulb don't happen soon enough, or in a large enough quantity to justify the higher cost.

No thank you. I will keep my $1 incandescent bulbs.
that_guy
1 / 5 (1) Dec 20, 2010
That is a bit dishonest not to include the cost of the light bulb in the total-life cost. $50 over 22.8 years is roughly $2.19 a year. Add in $1.08 for electricity, and the annual cost is $3.27. Ye Olde Incandescent's are cheap, dirt cheap. With an estimated 1000 to 2000 hours, at $1 each, the cost-savings of the LED bulb don't happen soon enough, or in a large enough quantity to justify the higher cost.

No thank you. I will keep my $1 incandescent bulbs.


and I will keep my cfl's. I love led lights (Especially flashlights), but I think we've both made the point that they're not ready for primetime, and that there is no valid economic argument for them in current form as lightbulb replacements.
ormondotvos
not rated yet Dec 20, 2010
And in five years or so, some new and amazing tricknology will make the ESL obsolete and a bad investment.

Sell them to the Prius drivers.
Nik_2213
not rated yet Dec 21, 2010
D'uh, do they come with a five-year warranty ?? How do you prove that they've died through no fault of yours ? How do you prove that they haven't reached their rated hours ??

I made the mistake of buying an 'early' LED lamp to fit over stairs where a slow-in-the-cold CFL might trigger epilepsy. A couple of months later, the bulb died at switch-on. Sorry, no replacement nor refund, as unable to prove fair usage...

Perhaps now they're going main-stream, the warranty issue may change...
GSwift7
1 / 5 (1) Dec 24, 2010
If you use LED to replace incandecent outdoors you may also need to scrape snow and ice off of them because they do not get warm when they are on, as has been noted by towns attempting to use LED traffic lights up north.

Every bulb inside my house is CFL except the ones over the bathroom mirrors and over the kitchen work area, and I love them.

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