Many of you will be putting up Christmas and Chanukah decorations soon if you have not already.  Trees will be flocked, halls will be decked, and billions of twinkling lights will be strung up about the house, yard, and trees.  These decorations use a lot of power.  Estimated average daily power consumption from Christmas lights is 1000 watts.  One kilowatt of electricity per day is what your holiday spirit will cost the grid.  If you put up your Christmas lights on November 1^st and turn them off for the season on January 1^st, that’s 61 kilowatts of additional power consumption per household for the holiday season.  Obviously, in some households, it’s more, much more.  If your household were like the Griswold household, it would be 27 times more.  That’s a lot of additional poisonous carbon in our air and higher energy bills.

We don’t want to put a damper on your holiday spirit.  We have our equal share.  We want to power your Christmas cheer.  Many of our customers already have lighting automation.  If you don’t or if your Christmas lights have not been incorporated into your lighting automation system, give us a call.  Seasonal lights can be automated to power on at a set time in the evening and off at a set time at night or early morning to minimize the energy use without minimizing the cheer.  Additionally, consider LED lights over incandescent.  A string of incandescent lights uses 8 times more energy than a string of LED lights, all the cheer at a fraction the energy consumption.  Earnestly, we wish you smart, safe, and happy holidays from the Fulkra family to yours.