When is the best time to upgrade your lights to LED?

States like NSW and Victoria offer homeowners and tenants the opportunity to upgrade their downlights from energy-hungry halogens to energy-efficient LEDs with incentivised offers through their state programs. We have written about these before for Victoria’s VEU program and NSW’s HEER incentive.

Please note: As of 1st February 2023, FREE Lighting upgrades are no longer available for Victorian homes. This is in accordance with the Victorian Energy Upgrades program (VEU).

The VEU program (previously called VEET) is the Victorian Energy Upgrades program and offers incentives such as rebates to Victorian residents to encourage energy efficiency upgrades in order to help the state reduce its carbon emissions. It has set a target of 6.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions saved by 2020.

The HEER (home energy efficiency retrofits) method is a program launched under the NSW state government.

Under both of these programs, Energy Makeovers offer free LEDs* for lighting upgrades under the downlight upgrade incentives around Melbourne and Sydney.

So when is the best time to upgrade your lights to LED

The answer is now.

Please note: As of 1st February 2023, FREE Lighting upgrades are no longer available for Victorian homes. This is in accordance with the Victorian Energy Upgrades program (VEU).

Governing parties come and go and changing-leadership can bring changes in state incentives. The Labor government was just re-elected in Victoria but that doesn’t necessarily mean the retrofit lighting incentive will be around permanently. So, there’s no time to waste!

Take the opportunity to upgrade your home’s downlights to LED now and you could save 85% on your lighting bill immediately.

A friendly reminder that LEDs:

• Use 6w of energy compared to 35-50w from a halogen globe
• Run at temperatures of around 30 degrees, instead of over 300 degrees like a halogen downlight
• They’re safer as they’re not as hot
• They last 20 times longer so don’t need replacing as often
• They’re not outdated technology like halogen lights
• They reduce your carbon emissions and your energy needs.

*LEDs are available free, however, we do charge a $33* installation fee.

Here are some relevant videos including 1 on the VEU program and the upgrade we offer in Sydney.

Please note: As of 1st February 2023, FREE Lighting upgrades are no longer available for Victorian homes. This is in accordance with the Victorian Energy Upgrades program (VEU).

*$33 installation fee in place from 1st September, 2019. LEDs are included free or charge.