Every year, many people start decorating their homes for Christmas as early as November. From the classic fairy lights to the colorful reindeer sleigh, there are no limits to creativity in the house, apartment or garden. But especially in view of rising electricity prices, consumers want to opt for particularly energy-saving and sustainable Christmas lighting this year. Florian Hockel, product expert at TÜV SÜD, gives tips for energy-saving decoration during Advent and explains what else to look out for when buying fairy lights and the like.
Saving tips for Christmas lighting
For many people, lighting is as much a part of the Christmas season as cookies and Christmas markets. Who wants to save electricity and costs, does not have to do without the atmospheric Christmas decoration by any means. “The energy consumption of a chain of lights depends greatly on the model. LED light chains are much more sustainable than the older models with incandescent bulbs. The light-emitting diodes not only last many times longer, they also consume 80 to 90 percent less electricity,” says Florian Hockel. LEDs are also ahead in terms of safety: in most cases, the chains are powered by means of electronic LED control gear, which provides a much lower voltage (12V / 24V or similar) for the fairy lights from the 230V mains voltage. Due to the overall very low power consumption, the LEDs do not get as hot as conventional incandescent lights during long running times and have a much lower risk of overheating and fire. It also minimizes the risk of electric shock.
“Consumers should just be careful not to buy battery-powered LED lighting, but rather a model with a connection for the mains power supply if possible, because battery power is significantly more expensive in total than electricity from the socket. A battery-operated LED light chain can under certain conditions even come to higher operating costs than lighting with incandescent or halogen lamps,” the expert knows. Apart from the financial expenditure batteries and Akkus carry additional dangers for environment and health. In terms of sustainability, rechargeable batteries are better than disposable batteries in Christmas decorations. They can be recharged 500 to 1,000 times, replacing a large amount of the disposable models. But does rechargeable automatically mean cheaper? “Not at first – but if you consider that rechargeable batteries can last between five and ten years, you can save a not inconsiderable amount of money in most cases compared to normal batteries,” says Florian Hockel.