Holiday Lights Cost in Ontario: What Your Display Adds to the Hydro Bill

Holiday lights in Ontario cost very little to run if they are LED: ten strings of LED mini lights on for 6 hours a night over a 40-night season use about 14 kWh, or roughly $2.40 including delivery, HST and the Ontario Electricity Rebate. The same display in old incandescent bulbs costs about $16 to $70 depending on bulb type, and a couple of inflatables can easily cost more than all the LED strings together.

These are estimates using an all-in electricity cost of about 17¢/kWh for a Toronto-area home on Time-of-Use, which works out to about 16.5¢ after HST and the 15.7% rebate. The wattages are typical; check the label on your own strings.

How much do holiday lights cost to run in Ontario?

All examples assume the lights are on 6 hours a night (5 to 11 p.m.) for 40 nights, from late November into early January, or 240 hours in total. The indoor tree is assumed to run 8 hours a night.

Decoration (10 strings unless noted)	Typical watts	Season kWh	Estimated season cost
LED mini lights, 100 bulbs per string	about 6 W each, 60 W total	14.4	about $2.40
Incandescent mini lights, 100 bulbs per string	about 40 W each, 400 W total	96	about $16
LED C9 bulbs, 25 per string	about 15 W each, 150 W total	36	about $6
Incandescent C9 bulbs, 25 × 7 W per string	175 W each, 1,750 W total	420	about $69
One inflatable with a blower	about 150 W	36	about $6
One LED projector	about 20 W	4.8	about $0.80
Indoor tree, 3 LED strings, 8 h a night	about 18 W	5.8	about $1

The math for any item is simple: watts ÷ 1,000 × hours = kWh, then kWh × your price. You can plug in your own figures with our appliance energy cost calculator.

A whole-house example

Here is a typical front-yard display, priced two ways.

Display	LED version	Incandescent version
10 mini light strings	60 W	400 W
4 C9 strings along the roofline	60 W	700 W
2 inflatables	300 W	300 W
1 projector	20 W	20 W
Outdoor total	440 W × 240 h = 105.6 kWh	1,420 W × 240 h = 340.8 kWh
Indoor tree (3 strings, 320 h)	5.8 kWh	38.4 kWh
Season total	about 111 kWh, roughly $18	about 379 kWh, roughly $63

Two lessons stand out. First, switching to LED cuts the light strings' cost by close to 90%, even more than the 75–85% savings LEDs typically offer over incandescent bulbs. Second, in the LED display the two inflatables account for about two-thirds of the electricity. If you want to trim the cost, put inflatables on a shorter timer or retire one.

Tip: Replacing working incandescent strings only for the energy savings pays back slowly on a small display, since the savings may be $10–$15 a season. It makes more sense when strings fail, or for large roofline displays with C7 or C9 incandescent bulbs, where the savings can be $50 or more a year.

Does timing matter on Time-of-Use and ULO?

On winter Time-of-Use, weekday on-peak runs 5 to 7 p.m. at 18.9¢/kWh, and off-peak starts at 7 p.m. at 9.1¢. Lights on from 5 to 11 p.m. on weekdays pay an average commodity price of about 12.4¢; weekends are off-peak all day. For an LED display the difference is a dollar or two over the season.

Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO) is different. Its on-peak price is 37.7¢/kWh on weekdays from 4 to 9 p.m. A 440 W display running 5 to 11 p.m. on a weekday uses 2.64 kWh, with 4 of the 6 hours in the on-peak window:

• On ULO: 1.76 kWh × 37.7¢ + 0.88 kWh × 14.6¢ = about 79¢ a night in commodity
• On TOU: 0.88 kWh × 18.9¢ + 1.76 kWh × 9.1¢ = about 33¢ a night in commodity

Over roughly 28 weekdays in the season, that gap is about $13. Still not huge, but on ULO it is worth starting your timer a little later or keeping the brightest items off until 9 p.m. See is Ultra-Low Overnight worth it for the wider picture.

Safety checklist

• Use outdoor-rated lights, cords and timers outside, and check for a certification mark such as CSA, cUL or ULC.
• Plug outdoor decorations into GFCI-protected outlets. Most exterior outlets in newer homes have this protection; older homes may not.
• Inspect every string for cracked sockets, frayed wires and loose connections before putting it up.
• Do not overload a circuit. A typical 15 A household circuit can supply about 1,800 W, and it is good practice to keep continuous loads to around 1,440 W. The incandescent display above would nearly max out a circuit on its own.
• Do not staple through wires or run cords under rugs or through closed doors and windows.
• Turn lights off when you go to bed or leave home. A timer or smart plug makes this automatic.
• Keep ladders away from overhead power lines. Contact the Electrical Safety Authority at esasafe.com (opens in a new tab) for more electrical safety guidance.

Low-effort ways to cut the cost

1. Put everything on a timer set for 5 to 10 or 11 p.m.
2. Use LED strings and LED projectors for most of the display.
3. Limit inflatables or run them for fewer hours.
4. Turn the indoor tree off when no one is in the room.
5. Unplug timers and transformers when the season ends; they draw a small standby load all year. See standby power and phantom loads.

For more on choosing bulbs, see our LED lighting guide, and for the rest of the season, our winter energy savings guide.

All figures in this post are estimates for illustration.