Ikea Plans to Sell Only LED Lights Worldwide to Cut Emissions

[ALS]

“Anything that helps us save energy at scale is a great step towards the future.”

Alex Morales - BLOOMBERG - October 1, 2012

Ikea Group, the world’s biggest home- furnishings retailer, said it will sell only light-emitting diode lamps and bulbs in its stores by 2016 to help its customers save energy and cut carbon emissions.

Replacing the world’s 12 billion traditional light bulbs with LEDs would cut emissions equivalent to those of the Netherlands, IKEA Chief Sustainability Officer Steve Howard said today in a webcast and teleconference. The Swedish company will also convert all the lighting in its stores, factories and distribution centers to LEDs, he said. ... [Read More]

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

= "LEDs have a great profit margin."

[RichXKU]

I'd like to replace few of my most used bulbs with LED, but they just aren't 'there' yet. With CFLs 13w=60w and 23w=100w rating while costing $1-3 a piece and lasting years it will be a while before LEDs are worthwhile.

[sidewinder]

Originally Posted by ItsNotAboutTheMoney

= "LEDs have a great profit margin."

It is about the money

[phoebeisis]

When I checked then-LEDs-at Sam's-the LED's were NOT more efficient than CFL's
Just as RICHXKU points out- both are about 4x as efficient as old style bulbs 23w=100w
Looks like a scam to me

[Kinder]

I have a reading lamp from IKEA with one of their LED bulbs--it gives astonishly bright and warm light, yet I verified with my kill-a-watt meter that it is only using 2 watts (rated at 3.5). The metal lamp itself never gets warm--it's eerie. I've also used an excellent LED fixture for a bicycle headlight, ultra compact and with seemingly the illumination of a halogen in my car. Plus there's no mercury involved, and those CFLs do break. So I'll register a more optimistic tone on this... though my good experiences with LEDs are always with directed beams of light as opposed to the diffused light that a room lamp needs to provide, so at this point I like having some of each depending on application.

[wick1ert]

I for one will miss their CFLs. I still feel they sold some of the best CFLs you could buy. Maybe it's time for a trip there to stock up on a few of them before they are totally gone. That said, the LED head light I had in my Harley was VERY good. It out performed the stock head light by a good margin. I also have LEDs in my recessed cans that will probably out last my lifetime if they last the rated hours since they get used very little.

If the LEDs they sell are as good and reliable as their CFLs have been over the years, I think that the buyers will get a good bargain from there.

[PaleMelanesian]

I bought my first CFL from Ikea 14 years ago. It traveled with me through several moves and life stages. It finally burned out earlier this year.

[WriConsult]

I've had a lot of Ikea CFLs. I wouldn't say their failure rate is any lower than their competition, but I wouldn't say it's any worse either. I will say they've been a really good value, and they've been more likely to carry the lower-wattage (<10W) bulbs that I like using in some of our smaller lamps around the house.

I'm pretty optimistic about LEDs in general, and Ikea wouldn't commit to this unless they are confident they can bring the price down by quite a lot from where it is now. Then LEDs will be a no-brainer, with all their advantages over CFLs.

My concern about LEDs is they tend to dim substantially over time: as in losing 1/3 to 1/2 of their brightness after a couple years of heavy use. I had to throw away my first set of GE LED white Christmas icicle lights because they dimmed so much (and turned off color) that they really looked UN-festive. I also have another string of Ikea white LED lights that put out less than half the light that they did when new.

So while I'm excited about LEDs, and they do promise to last longer than CFLs, I also don't kid myself about their 100,000 hour claim. Realistically what's going to happen is I'm going to buy the brightest LEDs I can, and as they age (and get dimmer) I'll rotate them to smaller fixtures where less light is needed, and rotate new, latest-greatest-brightest LEDs into the larger fixtures.

[RichXKU]

I had nearly forgotten about my GE LED Christmas icicle lights (blue) which suffered the same fate as Wri, though I dragged them out to 4 seasons. When they were new you could see them on the next hill over a mile away - the only blazin' blue thing in town. Near the end I could barely tell they were on coming up the street
I haven't decided what I'm going to do this year. Maybe go back to incandescent. Or how about neon