One of the greatest Christmas 'inventions' has been the LED string of Christmas lights. They look and perform exactly the same as a regular strand of Christmas lights, but they use about 2 watts worth of electricity.

Your 'average' strand of Christmas lights pulls about 1 amp of power which translates roughly into 100 watts of power for each string of lights. Imagine being able to plug in 50 strands and use the same amount of power as the old incandescant strand!

A couple years ago another product was introduced as well. The solar power LED strand of lights. It's basically a strand of LED lights hooked up to a low output solar panel.

During the day the solar panel collects energy from the sun and when the sun goes down your Christmas lights turn on. How long they stay on for depends on how much the sun was shining that day.

If you put up exterior Christmas lights you should definitely start switching over to the solar powered lights. Since they run on a solar panel and LED's they're going to last a VERY long time. The solar panel can last up to 25 years and the LED's are usually rated for 50,000 hours.

If you haven't yet switched to LED's for your exterior lights, buying the solar powered lights will start saving you money this year... since they don't use any of your homes power.

Your local hardware store should carry solar powered Christmas lights, although they can be quite pricey. I personally prefer to use eBay because you can find them quite a bit cheaper there.

Solar Powered Christmas Lights On eBay

Save some money this holiday season on your electric bill and use it to save for your renewable energy installation (or more gifts).

If you have any questions or comments feel free to use the comment form at the bottom of the page.