Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

Being a Boy Scout myself, I can tell you that while GS cookies are the most successful thing an organization has ever sold, BSA popcorn has never done well, to the point where my Troop has decided to completely ditch using that as a fund-raiser.

This then brings my main concern about using this as a fundraiser. If selling slightly over-priced popcorn and not doing well, how am I going to sell $25 LED's? With all the government credits out there, and I'm sure within a year or two the price will come down and they'll end up on the deal rack at Home Depot who will buy them?

Maybe I'm wrong, and I very well could be, but if I was going to start using this as a fund-raiser, I would have to see another team do this and get successful results.

Don't get me wrong LED's are great way to go with lighting in the future, but as a fund-raiser for FRC, I don't think it could work.

My $0.02.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

People who have been around a while understand that when you are told a time to payback by somebody trying to sell something then you should increase that 50% to 400% in the real world.

I can't afford spending hundreds of dollars on a new technology that has no other benefit other than potential costs savings in the future. Especially when that potential could be way off. It's just not gonna happen.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

Oi. This hits the nail on the head for a home consumer -- no one lightbulb in (at least) my house is responsible for any significant portion of the lighting consumed in my house over the course of a day. The lights aren't even on for significant portions of time throughout the day (2-4 hours at most). Ergo, while it's logical that I would spend considerably less money on energy, you're right that for it to have noticeable effect over the next year that I'd have to spend several hundred dollars up front. This basically puts the target consumer at someone who will live in their current residence long enough to see the benefit to begin with: a homeowner.

Very specifically, homeowners who may sell their homes in the next year would be perfect target consumers for these specific bulbs: they increase a home's appeal to potential home buyers. These guys would purchase the bulbs in [somewhat] "bulk" quantities in order to replace most or all bulbs within a home. While the housing market in many areas is in a slump, I'm sure there are some houses being successfully sold in most areas ... so perhaps this is an avenue teams can take.

Other potential [somewhat bulk] buyers are Nursing Homes, (maybe) Apartment complexes who are looking to appeal to an energy-conscious renter, etc. Teams could get creative with what's in their area.

Longer-term, these bulbs need to come down in price. The only way (at least in a way we have the power to influence, since no one knows how insane the margins are on a single bulb) to do so is to increase demand for the technology significantly. Looking around work today, I see hundreds and hundreds of 4' long fluorescent bulbs with a ~1" diameter -- the same standard bulb I see used almost everywhere (in the schools, corporate buildings, labs, etc). Maybe next year we can expand this program to sell light bulbs that fit into the same sockets our sponsors have so we may expand our fund raising efforts to them.

Heh, expand our fund raising to our current sponsors ... what a conundrum.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

Believe me, many companies are attempting to develop that exact bulb you describe. It's not as easy as it may appear.

-Brando

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

Or you can run the calculations yourself and figure it out. :)

Let's say you have an incandescent light bulb that just died, and you're considering replacing it with LED light bulb. Not replacing the light bulb is not an option. Any potential savings in cost from an LED bulb will be placed into an investment/401k/IRA/etc portfolio, where an average rate of return of 8% (over the life of the investment, obviously not during these past few years) is not uncommon.

The first step is to calculate the initial cost. The cost of a "long life" (20,000 hours life) 60W incandescent bulb is about $2, and the market price of an 7W LED bulb (40,000 hours life) is $25. Let's say a twin-pack of incandescent bulbs was purchased at the same time, so the net initial cost of an LED bulb over two incandescent bulbs required to meet the same lifespan is $21.

The second step is to calculate the annual cost. In Connecticut, electricity currently costs about $0.20/kWh for residential customers! (That's what happens when you let NIMBYs block any new generating plants or transmission lines). Let's say the light bulb that died was on for eight hours a day, every day, which results in an on time of 2992 hours per year.

The 60W incandescent bulb will use 179.52 kWh of electricity, while the 7W LED bulb will use 20.944 kWh. Using the price of electricity above, the incandescent bulb will cost $35.91/year while the LED will cost $4.19. Switching to LED will yield an annual savings of $31.72 in CT. Redoing these calculations with the US national average of $0.1153/kWh results in an annual savings of $18.28.

The last part is to ascertain how long we will do these calculations for. At the above stated use levels, 40,000 hours / 2992 hours/year = 13.36 years. I'll round down to 13 years.

So now we can plug this into time-value-of-money economics equations to determine whether or not it's worth it to invest in LED bulbs. I'll calculate this using the annual worth method, and if the final value is greater than zero, the idea is profitable relative to the status quo and should be pursued.

AW_Connecticut(8%) = -$21(A/P, 8%, 13 years) + ($35.91) = -$2.66 + $35.91 = $33.25

AW_{US Average}(8%) = -$21(A/P, 8%, 13 years) + ($18.28) = -$2.66 + $18.28 = $15.62

Thus, in both cases, the LED bulbs both result in an positive annual profit over the status quo (incandescent bulbs), and depending on what area of the country you live in and how much you use light bulbs, they may even pay for themselves in less than a year.

No reason to replace every bulb at once. Replacement by attrition spreads the "initial price shock" out over a period of several years.

As for the "potential" part, that relies on the accuracy of the life-span characteristics of the new LED bulbs. Assuming the life span follows a normal distribution, a very large standard deviation in the mean life expectancy would be required to have a high sensitivity of the expected savings. Using a simple non time-value-of-money approach, the point at which a LED bulb breaks even against an incandescent is

(price of LED - price of incandescent) / ((watts of incandescent - watts of LED) * price per kWh)

($25-$2) / (0.06 - 0.007) * 0.1153) = 3763.76 hours.

Thus, the savings are only "potential" if the lifespan of the LED bulb is less than 3764 hours. There would have to be an INCREDIBLY HUGE standard deviation in the life span of LED bulbs to lead to a even a 1% chance of not profiting off replacing an incandescent bulb with an LED bulb.

While Brandon might provide a better answer to this, the fluorescent tube lights are different than the squiggly lights one puts in a residential light fixture, in that they have an external ballast to pump the voltage up to around 600V. Any drop in replacement bulb would therefore have to run at 600V, which presents a major challenge. Removing the ballast and wiring the tube fixture directly to 120 or 240 VAC would probably make it easier to make LED tube lights, but would eliminate the possibility of putting a fluorescent tube back in.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

did you mean 2,000 hours?


Four-pack for $1.20 = $0.30 each


Areas served by nuclear power plants pay as little as $0.015 off-peak.


You are ignoring the value of the heat emitted by the incandescent. In colder climates, this is not waste heat. It helps heat the house. You have to figure in the price of the heating fuel you saved.


This seems unrealistic as an average, unless you are suggesting replacing only high-use bulbs with LED.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

There's a lot of energy and brain power being used in this thread. :D

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

Ether, if I'm not mistaken, Art was doing a simplified version, similar to what an engineering economics professor might do as an in-class exercise. He also neglected inflation. As a matter of fact, as soon as I started reading the setup, I remembered a class I was in last spring, namely, Engineering Economics. Build one transmission line or 2, based on X cost/line and Y capacity--but where are the material/transportation costs?

Does that other stuff have to be factored in? The nuclear power is (or should be) included in the national average, which was also done. Heating of the room depends on large part on both the size of the room and the number (and type) of light bulbs; for my living room at home, one light bulb normally, 2-7 at peak lighting, that is minimal heating. We get more from the people in the room. So that's not a whole lot of heating fuel saved by using incandescent.

As for the light being on 8 hours a day, during the winter, it's quite possible to be up (and in one room) for quite some time, say 5-9 or 10, while it's dark, and another couple of hours in the morning, so easily about 6-7 hours. Stay up late often enough, and you could make a case for 8 hours. It also makes for decent calculations.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

Here's my source for the figures I chose: http://www.amazon.com/WATTS-LIGHT-FR.../dp/B000ST9AMM

Using numbers for cheaper incandescent bulbs with 1/10 the life and 1/6 the price of the one I quoted only benefits the LED replacement case.

The prices I chose were listed on the Department of Energy website: http://www.eia.doe.gov/electricity/epm/table5_6_b.html

Prices of $0.015/kWh would be great if the US got 80% of their electricity from nuclear plants like France does, but given paranoia over nuclear power plants (there has still yet to be a single confirmed death or case of cancer from Three Mile Island) and a lack of a long-term nuclear waste disposal/processing/storage facility (like Yucca Mountain proposal), we're going to be stuck with much higher average electricity prices for some time, probably until nuclear fusion research yields a commercially viable solution (last I've seen, Chinese scientists have been able to sustain a 10 million degree Celsius fusion reaction for 400 seconds, and 100 million degree Celsius reaction for 60 seconds).

But in the summer, your air conditioning has to fight the heat generated by incandescent bulbs. I've seen prior calculations (can't seem to find the link now) that show from a heating/cooling issue between incandescent and CFL bulbs is a wash for most of the US. If I can find the link, I'll share it.

I chose eight hours per day as an average value for most lights in "busy" areas of a house/apartment.

I was considering solving these equations as a function of the hours per day of operation, but then I realized that the only difference this has is to shrink or widen the time bands. The ratio of break even point relative to the entire life of the bulb remains the same. The only way the hours or operation per year would affect the break even point relative to the total life of the bulb would be if degradation of the bulb over time occured. AFAIK this doesn't happen, so that's why I chose a fixed value (eight hours per day) to simplify calculations.

It's somewhat simplified, but the annual worth method is used to compare investing in an idea relative to investing in the status quo. Since inflation would affect both equally, it cancels out of these equations.

However, factoring in inflation is necessary if you want to calculate the present or future value of the savings (annual payment).

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

I didn't see a lumen rating anywhere on that site. Do you own any of these? What's the lumen rating ?


Yes. My point was, the analysis depends heavily on the electric rates in your local area.


Of course. But in summer you use the lights a whole lot less, and most days (in colder climates) you can leave the windows open and let the breeze cool the room.


The operative phrase above is highlighted. In my post, I specifically mentioned colder climates.


Thanks for clarifying that.


But "break even point relative to the entire life of the bulb" is not the metric you care about. To illustrate this point by (unrealistic) exaggeration, imagine you used each bulb only 2 minutes per day. The break-even point would be too far out into the future to even make a useful analysis.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

Precisely. It's minimal. But that's what the whole case for LEDs is based on: the "minimal" "waste" heat generated by the inefficient incandescent bulbs.

So, either the "waste" heat is minimal and we shouldn't bother about it, or it's not minimal, in which case it should be factored into the equation.

By the way, in the winter, I keep 7 100-watt incandescent bulbs burning in desk, table, and floor lamps situated throughout the study, and it keeps the room nice and comfortable.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

You can quibble over the math and assumptions all you want. Regardless of the nuances there, it is clear to me that these can indeed "pay for themselves", and I think most of us (maybe not the general population) can get past the psychology and invest now for future savings...

Having said that, I still won't buy them (for an entirely different reason). It is my belief that this technology is changing so rapidly that I am better off waiting. In a couple years, the efficiencies will be even better, and the cost will be dramatically less.

To me, it's not a question of if, but rather when. Early adopters always get burned. Think of the guy that spent $5K on that 50" plasma TV. Now they are approaching $500 (10X reduction). I believe it won't be very long at all before the $20 LED bulb costs $2 (maybe even a couple years). Then I will put them all over the place while feeling sorry for the poor saps that paid $20 each.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

But you calculations make my point. Instead of using average costs for the country you picked a rate that's almost 4 times what I would pay, a light bulb cost way too high and a usage rate above what my hardest used light bulb would generate. Things like that make my skeptic alarm go off, big time.

That's what salespeople do, over exaggerate things to prove their point.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

I did the calculations for both Connecticut (as an extreme) and the US national average. The US average is $0.1153/kWh, and the stated average for an Indiana residential property in August 2010 is $0.091/kWh. Redoing the math from my first post using the Indiana electricity price yields an annual savings of $14.43. Plugging that into the annual worth equation yields annual savings of $11.77. At these usage levels, it would take just over two years to break even. At lower usage levels (four hours per day), it would take ~4.5 years to break even. Over the lifespan of the bulb (neglecting inflation or electricity price changes) this still results in a net profit of $128.

Either way, these calculations won't matter after 2012 when new energy efficiency standards take effect that require all standard light bulbs between 310 and 2600 lumens to be 30% more efficient than baseline incandescent bulbs, or in 2020 when even tighter standards will require all bulbs to produce at least 45 lumens per watt. While this has spurred more innovation in lighting technology in the past five years than the previous fifty, the core benefits from all improved technology have thus far been from long-term savings and benefits. It's likely that as the technology improves and production ramps up the initial prices of these improved bulbs (whether CFL, LED or high-efficiency incandescent) will approach parity with plain incandescent bulbs.

Re: FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"
 

But are those rates all peak? That would also throw you off.

Here in Indy the rate is less than your stated average Indiana average .08794 peak .06119 mid-peak and .02948 off peak.

But that doesn't change my original point of the numbers presented by advocates being worst case instead of real world and we haven't even discussed equivalent lumens yet.

also when the world ends on Dec 21 2012 it won't matter anyway :)