Electrical – Does removing an LED bulbs from fixture decrease energy usage

If you don't want to get an 20' extension ladder (which can be very difficult to transport home from the store), then you can get one of the Little Giant or Werner multi-ladders:

Or you can get the werner folding ladder:

But, a good ladder will pay off in more ways than just this - cleaning gutters, etc.

I once performed a direct study on this subject. I built an apparatus to power-cycle a T12 fluorescent lamp every 60 seconds and an identical lamp every 12 hours. I used both recording watt-meters and standard household electric meters to measure the power consumed.

I expected that the power consumption of the filaments during preheat would be different from the power consumption of the ionized arc. Probably more, but possibly less. I was surprised to find that even after 96 hours I detected no measurable difference.

I could only guess that the ballast limited the filament current just as it limited the ion arc current.

This was so long ago that there was only one kind of ballast available, what we now call a dumb ballast. I don't know what the result would be with a modern fixture.

I also applied an oscilloscope to the line side of the ballast and I could see a power spike that lasted less than 1/120 second. I couldn't get a good idea of its magnitude. I theorized that the meters used moving parts and could not practically respond to an event of such short duration.

My conclusion was: Yes, a fluorescent lamp does consume a power surge on startup -- but you don't pay for it!