Here’s what new LED lightbulb standards mean for American households

New standards for light-emitting diode (LED) lightbulbs announced by the Biden administration last week will likely mean measurable savings for American households, but experts say the bulbs last so long it may be years before consumers notice the benefits.

The Biden administration’s final rule for LED bulbs, announced Friday, more than doubles the energy efficiency requirements for the bulbs, taking them from 45 lumens (the unit of measurement for brightness) per watt to more than 120 lumens. The Department of Energy (DOE) has projected the rule will result in about $27 billion in total savings and prevent the release of 70 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over a 30-year period.

“LED lightbulbs, which are now the norm, will get more energy efficient and therefore use less electricity,” Andrew deLaski, executive director at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, told The Hill in an interview.

Specifically, he said, Americans will save about a dollar per bulb under normal usage conditions, which comes out to a $50 annual savings in a typical household with about two dozen lightbulbs.

“It takes some time, and the reason it takes some time is LED lightbulbs last a long time,” he added. In many cases, he said, LED bulbs can last as long as 10 years before burning out, compared to the now phased-out incandescent bulbs, which typically lasted no more than a year.

“Small savings add up, is the moral of the story,” he said.

Consumer savings on lightbulbs will differ from those associated with appliances that most households only own one of, such as a refrigerator, said Joe Vukovich, a climate and energy staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Even if it’s a couple bucks over the life of the bulb times the number of bulbs,” those savings accumulate in a household with many lightbulbs, Vukovich told The Hill.

Full enforcement of the new LED rule does not begin until 2029, but Vukovich said some manufacturers and retailers will likely take steps toward compliance before then. 

The administration has pursued a broader strategy of tightening energy efficiency rules for appliances and lightbulbs, after the Trump administration loosened or declined to update many such rules. In 2019, the Trump Energy Department blocked a new lightbulb efficiency rule that was set to take effect the following January under a law signed by President George W. Bush in 2007.

“There are provisions in the law that are quite clear saying the DOE has to take a look at lightbulb energy efficiency and start this rulemaking process,” Vukovich said. “The Trump administration spent four years trying to get around that very clear language; there was a lot of needless delay … the Biden administration’s approach has been very different.”

The NRDC was involved in legal challenges to the Trump administration’s actions on the lightbulb efficiency rule.

Though the Trump administration rolled back a number of existing energy efficiency and environmental rules, the LED rule’s background involving a law passed by Congress could make it harder for a second administration under the former president to undo, Vukovich added.

“I think it’s very clear that there’s a very strong anti-backsliding provision that says once the standard is out there, you can’t weaken it,” he said. “Do I think they will try to come up with creative legal theories? Sure, maybe, but … past a certain point, what’s the point of rolling this back?”

Lightbulb manufacturers themselves also backed the new efficiency rules. But that’s no guarantee a second Trump administration would not take action to roll them back. During former President Trump’s first term, the Energy Department scrapped Obama-era energy efficiency rules regarding the flow of water from showerheads not because of lobbying from manufacturers, but because the then-president’s vocal personal dislike of the more efficient models.

Prior to the announcement of the LED rule, the Biden administration began enforcing a separate ban on new sales of older incandescent lightbulbs last August.

That process was often misleadingly conflated with the government confiscating individual consumers’ incandescent bulbs. But there’s been no comparable controversy surrounding the new LED rules, deLaski said, in part because the industry is broadly in favor of them.

“These are the bulbs that are available on shelves — it’s been that way for some time, and guess what, they work as well or better than the inefficient incandescent lightbulbs they replaced,” he said. “Consumers are happy with LEDs, and this standard will make sure the LEDs on the market are even more energy efficient, and that’s a good thing.”

“There’s really nothing to push back against,” he added.