Stories & Features

B.C.'s transition to holiday LEDs began with a bold energy saving goal

In the early 2000s, LED holiday lighting was an emerging technology that was expensive compared to its incandescent counterpart, and not yet approved for sale in Canada.

Around the same time, Stephen Hobson, BC Hydro's long-time director of conservation and energy management and his team were facing the lofty challenge of finding a way to reduce B.C.'s future electricity demand by one-third over 10 years, solely through convincing customers to adopt energy-efficient products and behaviours. And this emerging holiday LED technology was an enticing option. The lights represented a quantum leap in efficiency, using up to 90% less energy than traditional incandescent holiday lights and lasting up to 10 times longer, which presented the opportunity for big energy savings if they could get them adopted in B.C.

"There were a lot of challenges bringing them into the market," recalls Hobson. "The earliest version didn't look that great. There were limited colours – blue, red, and green, plus an icy kind of white that we still have today. People thought they were a bit weird, because they were used to a warm incandescent light."

We had found a manufacturer in the U.S. who was pioneering LED holiday lights. But bringing those lights to B.C. was anything but easy.

First, we had to lobby the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) to help the manufacturer get CSA approval. But no one really knew much about the lights or wanted them in Canada, so Hobson's team got approval to buy a container of LED light strings – about 20,000 strings – for B.C.

The strings wouldn't be available for retail sale in that first year. We showcased them by partnering with local Business Improvement Associations to use the LEDs in store fronts and in community lighting displays, including Bright Nights at Stanley Park in Vancouver. Once the team sorted through the final challenge of the lights arriving in Canada with a U.S. safety certification label rather than the Canadian one, the lights made their debut in B.C.

"While some people really didn't care for the look of the lights, other people loved them, especially the icy white and vibrant blue," says Hobson. "Our promotional campaigns were very successful in driving awareness and generated lots of requests from people wanting to know where they could purchase the product."

And because LED light strings weren't available for retail sale, demand for them grew.

"What happened next was a big surprise to all of us," says Hobson. "When people found out they couldn't purchase the product, it just served to make them want them more. It created a frenzy. We had people asking store owners if they could buy the lights in their display. And we had one situation where light strings were displayed in boulevard trees. Someone cut down several big branches to steal the lights."

The rest, as they say, is history. The following year, BC Hydro worked with retailers to stock the product, and the lights sold out in a few weeks. In the next few years, we continued to work with retailers to increase the number of light strings available for sale in B.C.

The shift in the market was supported by promotional campaigns and offers, including rebates and an incandescent string recycling campaign that helped British Columbians make the switch. The costs of the light strings eventually dropped and LEDs have emerged as the go-to choice for holiday lighting not just in B.C., but beyond. Today's LEDs include a vast variety of colour options – including some products that claim millions of colours you can control via an app on your phone – and configurations such as snowflakes, icicles, spheres, and snowfalls.

By 2011, holiday lighting energy use in B.C. dropped 40%

Between 2009 and 2011, the mass adoption of LED holiday lights resulted in a nearly 40% drop in outdoor holiday lighting load in B.C. And BC Hydro had a lot of fun promoting the conversion.

A BC Hydro report once referenced the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and the main protagonist Clark Griswold, played by Chevy Chase. We calculated that Griswold's infamous light display would have cost him around $4,700 during the holiday season using incandescent lights, compared to the $54 it would have cost if it was lit by LEDs.

"What prompted us to bring in LEDs in the early 2000s was a very clear mandate and direction to achieve 1,000 gigawatt-hour savings in B.C. homes," says Hobson. "We didn't have all of the answers. This target forced us to make some bold choices and to take a risk, forced us to explore new ideas and be innovative. LED holiday lights were just one solution that contributed to the achievement of our energy savings target."

The electricity savings from British Columbians switching to holiday LEDs is estimated to have been around 51 gigawatt hours each year, or the equivalent of cooking 63 million turkeys in an electric oven. But the work isn't done – as of 2018, a third of British Columbians surveyed said they still had at least one incandescent light string.

Related:

• Outdoor and holiday lighting
• Report: Minimalist decorating increasing but so are 'mega' lighting displays