It happens every year…you’re walking along the street and see one of your neighbours’ houses overloaded with Christmas Lights! Whilst you admit it looks nice, inside you’re thinking “just how much does that cost to run?!”

The answer is that it will probably be considerably cheaper than you would expect! Over the last decade especially, more and more lighting has become LED based, replacing old filament bulbs, which are now quite rare to find. LEDs last longer, use less energy, and don’t heat up. What isn’t to like?

We have created below a scenario in which you can see for yourself just what a ‘standard’ (if there is such a term for Christmas Lighting) outdoor display would cost. This is based on using our ConnectPro Connectable Lights, which will cost slightly more to run than low voltage alternatives as they operate at 240v and are therefore brighter.

This is the display that we based our calculations on. Two products we used are our large white pinecone lights on the tree, and on the roof we used standard warm white mains voltage string lights.

This display consists of 588 bulbs in total, with a variety of warm white and white lighting, and is a typical Christmas display. Although there are of course people who will have many more bulbs than this, we felt this was a perfect example of a traditional family home who hadn’t gone overboard on their decorations!

Obviously everyone is different when it comes to Christmas lighting; some people like to have their lights up nice and early, others a cool understated week before Christmas! Therefore we have created a few different scenarios, and hopefully one will fit into your requirements. All are based on using the lights for 6 hours per day.

How much does it cost to run Christmas lights for a month?

Let us show you exactly how much it would cost to run this display for the full 31 days of December, from 5-11pm at night. This completes a total of 186 hours of the display being lit up.

For our whole display, the wattage was 96.2w. The average cost of electricity in the UK currently is approx. 13p per KW (a Kilowatt is 1000 Watts.) Therefore divide 1000 by your wattage amount, before dividing this answer by 13.

1000/96.2 = 10.4kW

10.4/13 = 0.8p

To complete the equation, divide this last number by the amount of hours the display will be on for.

186/0.8 = 232p!

All of December = £2.32

Less than £3 for a whole month’s lighting at Christmas? Even Scrooge wouldn’t turn his nose up at that.

How much does it cost to run Christmas lights for two weeks?

Many people choose to erect their Christmas tree and accompanying display in mid-December, taking it down at the end of the month – how much would this cost…

Middle of December – end of December (2 weeks) = £1.05

How much does it cost to run Christmas lights for six weeks?

If a month doesn’t seem long enough for your Christmas display, you might want to squeeze a couple of extra weeks of use in:

Middle of November – end of December (6 weeks) = £3.15

How much does it cost to run Christmas lights for one day?

If you only want to put your lights on for a single evening (Christmas Day?) then the costs are as follows:

One day = 8p!.

Who said Christmas lighting was expensive?

Disclaimer: these figures are according to an individual study carried out by Festive Lights Ltd based on 6 hours use per day and a cost of 13p per kWh, using the lights indicated above. Whilst we have taken every measure to ensure the accuracy of the study, actual figures may vary. We take no responsibility for the electricity costs incurred by our customers or readers of this article.

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