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LED bulbs are energy efficient since they will be using about 80% of the power they consume to create light. They take in considerably less power than incandescent lamps do, which also help preserve on electricity bills. Energy used is very low, so individuals are left to enjoy big bucks they once, have to expend on incandescent-driven utilities.

But they're pricey. Practical technology, after all, always comes along with an expensive selling price.

Lighting professionals and suppliers scramble for ways to fix reconcile the energy-saving perks and the high fees. Philips, Osram, Toshiba, Bridgelux, which is actually owned by VantagePoint, together with Lemnis Lighting are among the firms that want to lower the worth of LED light bulbs to $20 from $25, after a few couple of years. But firstly, they need to look for a technique to help consumers pay less for LED light bulbs.

A lot of specialists in the industry are suggesting a radical but very possible (and advantageous) solution: instead of building new gas or solar plants, utilities and third-party service providers can subsidize LED production and give free LED units to consumers.

Alan Salzman, co-founder of VantagePoint, contends that this utility that gives away LED bulbs will enjoy cost efficiency.

A 60-Watt counterpart LED bulb uses around 10 Watts. With an incandescent, a property owner would purchase as much as 50 Watts per socket. If LED light bulbs cost $20, a power company can purchase 10 million LED lights for $200 million. They can buy a lot more units if you consider the wholesale discounts. That much LED light bulbs in use could save the power company 500 megawatts of energy. Increase twofold their investment, at $400 million, and the power company can take 1 gigawatt of energy offline. This quantity is about the same level of power created from a nuclear or coal plant, that would cost billions of dollars to construct.

Consumers who want to pay less for LED light bulbs will be able to retrofit all sockets in their home with the LED bulbs that will be given away. According to a report from Philips, there are up to 52 light sockets in an average US household. With 100 million homes in America, that totals to 5.2 billion light sockets. The more units the utilities give away, the more savings they can enjoy.

However, this scheme does not consider the response and behavior of potential customers. There's no revealing to that people will promote those freebie LED light bulbs on eBay.

In addition, while LED light bulbs will curtail power consumption inside the home, the LEDs may only save power for the utilities if they are fitted in areas where smart meters exist. Regrettably, some consumers have since complained about smart grid, saying that the new meters sometimes overcharge them. Controlling how consumers will use the free LED bulbs will be too big of a PR problem.

Third-party companies may offer the solution. These firms would retrofit each residence, charge as a fee a component of the percentage of power preserved over the years to come.