Rockefeller Center Christmas tree goes LED

It looks like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree will be a considerably smaller energy hog this holiday season than it has been in years past, as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that the tree will be lit up with LED lights for the first time - 30,000 of 'em, to be specific. That'll apparently reduce the tree's energy consumption from 3,510 kilowatt hours per day to just 1,297 -- a savings that, as the AP points out, is roughly equivalent to the amount of electricity consumed by a typical 2,000-square-foot house in a month. While it's not clear if it'll be used for the tree or not, the owners of Rockefeller Center also took the opportunity to show off a new 365-panel solar array on the roof of one of the complex's buildings, which is apparently big enough to lay claim to the title of the largest privately owned solar roof in Manhattan.

[Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

[podphreak @ Nov 22nd 2007 3:52AM]

It would have been cheaper to get a giant LED backlit TV. Cheaper to take down and set up!!! (and you could play doom!)

[miko34 @ Nov 22nd 2007 4:49AM]

I got LED Christmas lights last year. Now, people go blind when they stare at the tree. Too damn bright if ya ask me.

[Martin Trautmann @ Nov 22nd 2007 5:05AM]

3510 kWh a day? Does it burn day and night? This would be 146250 W. It's hard to imagine that it could be as bright as 300 powerful 500 halogen beamers.

[Firebird @ Nov 22nd 2007 5:15AM]

I don't recall seeing the tree lit 24/7, i think they keep it lit fairly late. It is supposed to go off at 12 midnight I believe, but I've seen them just leave it on longer sometimes.

[Martin Trautmann @ Nov 22nd 2007 6:56AM]

When it's turned off at midnight, it might run e.g. from 4 to 12 p.m., having almost 500 000 W power consumption before? This would take fuses for 4000 Ampere at 110 V? Even more amazing...

I know that in the US everything is bigger - but that much?

Now the LEDs: 1297 kWh for 8 hours and 30 000 LEDs - this would be high power 5 W LEDs. I doubt that they would use more than 1 W LEDs, while a typical super bright LED was e.g. 4 V * 20 mA = 0.08 W. Let's assume 0.1 W per LED, this would be 3 000 W in total or about 30 kWh per day, running for 10 hours a day.

Are those numbers above real?

[Markus @ Nov 24th 2007 6:53AM]

it's still a big waste of electricity.

[Martin Trautmann @ Nov 22nd 2007 7:06AM]

I learned by now that the power consumption is NOT per day, but for the total of 42 days it is used.

Before there were 25 000 bulbs, 7.5 W each (in 1949 it were 7500 bulbs) ->
187 500 Watt. These are more reasonable numbers (75 kWh a day, 10 hours a day, 42 days) - and a bill of $130 only for electricity. (how much is a kWh in the USA? I assumed 0.1 $/kWh)

[Carla Ulbrich @ Dec 3rd 2007 6:27PM]

We had an article in the local paper today about this. the tree is lit all day every day from 530am to 1130pm. tourist season you know. so it's lit a lot more hours than your would have expected. they also had the key cut down by hand instead of using chainsaws and are giving the lubmer from the tree to habitat for humanity to build homes when the season is over. even if it's a political statement i think the goal is to encourage the manhattan population to go a little greener in lifestyle.

[vulcan @ Nov 22nd 2007 10:31AM]

Hong Kong got a giant artifical Christmas Tree which talls over 70 feet (21.3m) and lights up with over 1 million LEDs in Festival Walk (Shopping Mall) in Kowloon Tong.

Source:
http://appledaily.atnext.com/template/apple/art_main.cfm?iss_id=20071122&sec_id=4104&subsec_id=11867&art_id=10448906

[Chris.L @ Nov 22nd 2007 3:35PM]

I just put some LED christmas lights up at my house last night, and I have to say, they don't look so good, IMO.

Like they're too bright and I don't know, they kind of make me feel like I'm in a store.

[TheWakeUpCall @ Nov 22nd 2007 7:49PM]

That tree isn't even pretty.

I prefer the traditional fur tree with white lights wrapped round :)

[Jonathan Sundy @ Nov 23rd 2007 12:51AM]

I'm curious how many decades they'll have to keep those lights to get a return on investment? I mean LED's are significantly more expensive than regular bulbs, and with city wide led street light programs talking about a decade for break even.... I don't see how this makes much sense 1 month a year at a time....

[jago4984 @ Nov 23rd 2007 1:15PM]

Notice that Mayor Bloomberg made the announcement - it's all for publicity, "look everything LED, saving power, etc." They never mention how much more it costs to buy the darn lights in the first place. Either way, I've fallen for it, low power LED's for everything!

[A Nanny Mouse @ Nov 27th 2007 4:55PM]

From the web site for the tree http://www.thetreenyc.com/smartTree.php, the panels create a "70Kwh generation station". With the tree consuming 1,300 Kwh per day, does this actually even make a dent? I don't get it...

[Dennis D. Menace @ Dec 16th 2007 8:59PM]

The tree looks terrible with these new lights!!!!!!!!! I will never go there again to see it. This will break my 40 year tradition!