Solar vs Low-Voltage Landscape Lights: Which Is Worth It?

Choose solar landscape lights if

• You want to mark a path or garden edge this afternoon with no wiring.
• The spot is far from an outlet, or cable would have to cross a driveway.
• The lights get several hours of direct sun.
• You rent, or want lights you can rearrange every season.

Choose low-voltage landscape lights if

• You want steps, walkways and entries lit brightly and consistently for safety.
• You want to uplight trees or the front of the house.
• Your yard is shaded, or you are in a northern climate with short winter days.
• You want a system that lasts for years with replaceable parts, like Lumina Lighting 3W LED Low Voltage Path Lights (8-Pack) fixtures.

For marking where a path is, usually yes. For lighting steps well enough to see your footing or washing a tree with light, usually not. A solar stake has a small panel and a battery like the 800 mAh cell in the Mancra lights, so the energy available each night is limited, and output falls after cloudy days, under trees and in winter when days are short and the sun is low. Owners commonly report solar path lights dimming or shutting off before dawn by late fall, and fading overall after a season or two as batteries age. Solar spotlights such as the NYMPHY Solar Spotlights (4-Pack, Warm White) work for shrubs in full sun. For anything safety-related, like stairs and entry walks, wire it.

The transformer converts 120 V household power to about 12 V and switches the lights on at dusk with a photocell or timer. Fixtures clip onto a direct-burial cable anywhere along its run. Size the transformer so the total fixture wattage stays below its rating: SUNVIE says to keep total load under 80 percent of rated watts on its SUNVIE 300W Two-Zone Landscape Transformer with Timer, and Malibu recommends about 90 W on its 120 W Malibu 120 Watt Landscape Power Pack with Sensor. Eight 3 W LED path lights use 24 W, well within a 120 W unit; the halogen Malibu kit uses 140 W on a 150 W transformer. Long cable runs lose voltage, which dims the far fixtures, so heavier cable or splitting runs helps. Our landscape lighting planning guide walks through layouts.

Less than most people expect, especially with LEDs. The halogen Malibu kit draws 140 W: 6 hours a night uses 0.84 kWh, about 14 cents a night at 17 cents per kWh, or about $52 a year. Eight Lumina Lighting 3W LED Low Voltage Path Lights (8-Pack) fixtures draw 24 W: about 2.4 cents a night, or about $9 a year. Add six Lumina Lighting 4W LED Low Voltage Spotlights (6-Pack) at 4 W each and the total is still under $15 a year. If you buy a halogen kit, swapping to LED fixtures cuts running cost by more than 80 percent and lets a smaller transformer do the job. Solar costs nothing to run but has more frequent replacement.

Plug-in low-voltage systems are generally a homeowner project: the transformer plugs into an existing outdoor GFCI outlet with a weatherproof in-use cover, and the 12 V cable is laid shallowly or in mulch. Hire a licensed electrician if you need a new outdoor outlet, want to hardwire a transformer, or are installing 120 V line-voltage fixtures, which require buried wiring to code. Call 811 before trenching cable across a lawn so buried utility lines are marked, even for shallow digs.