Every year, millions of families drape their homes, fences, trees and bushes with hundreds of beautiful twinkling little Christmas lights. This year, why not make the choice to choose a more eco-friendly string of lights – ones that save energy, rather than drain energy.

These lights are better also because they are designed so that if one bulb goes out the rest will stay lit. Each light has a clip on their base so you can easily attach the lights. These bulbs use 50% less energy than standard C7 lights without compromising brightness.

At IFA 2011, LG Electronics is showing off their new smart home appliances. A highlight will be its smart refrigerator, which combines the world’s first Smart Eco Door on smart fridge with a series of functions that stand to transform how customers manage their food and their kitchens.

“We see European customers as being very conscious of leading an environmentally responsible lifestyle, and LG is well placed to meet these demands,” said Young-ha Lee, President and CEO of LG Electronics Home Appliance Company. “The combination of our Core Technologies and Smart ThinQ™ technologies not only reduces energy and water usage, but also saves customers’ time and energy. The combination of the two means previously unimagined levels of convenience and energy efficiency and a fundamental change in the way people manage their homes.”

LG’s smart refrigerator offers a smart saving solution to save energy while keeping food fresh. Smart saving provides a “Night Saving Mode” that reduces energy consumption for up to four hours at night time and a “Customise Saving Mode” that cuts back on energy use during periods preset by the customer. LG has also added the Smart Eco Door to make the overall configuration more convenient and less prone to energy loss.

Looking for a more efficient way to cool down this summer? The eco-Friendly 12000 BTU portable air conditioner by Whynter features thegreen R-410A refrigerant and lead free RoHS compliant components. This A/C unit features a specially designed self-evaporating technology, which uses and recycles moisture collected during cooling and heating process to produce cool air. The Whynter eco-friendlier air conditioner can cool up to a 400 sq. ft. space, which is the size of a small apartment.

The New Comfort Model Energy Saver1000 heater with remote control has an energy-saving digital thermostat that allows you to set your desired room temperature and walk away, with 4 programmable modes for different times of day. The energy-efficient infrared heater is designed to not remove moisture from the air and lower humidity levels like other heaters do. Energy Smart programmable thermostat and Energy Saver mode saves you up to 50% off of your heating bill depending on the type of heating system you use. Instead of using disposable filters, the included lifetime air filter is washable. The long-lasting infrared bulbs are rated to last over 20,000 hours.

One of the best ways to become more energy efficient is to start measuring the amount of energy you use in your home every day. A company called Current Cost has developed the ENVI energy monitor. The ENVI connects to your electrical energy supply, and gives you detailed data on usage.

The ENVI Energy Monitor comes with a sensor, a transmitter and a display unit. The sensor is attached to a electricity live feed and is connected to the transmitter. The transmitter sends energy usage data to the wireless display unit, which allows you to track energy usage up to 30 meters away from it.

The display unit provides you with many details regarding your electricity usage, such as the cost of the current electricity drain. The display can provide the information in graph form, showing night, day and evening consumption. It can inform you of how this differs to previous consumption and it can also use stored information to forecast daily, weekly and monthly consumption and costs.

This Energy Efficient Kettle by electronics giant, Philips, utilizes a measuring guide and a flat heating element to help reduce the amount of electricity used. It does this by allowing you to boil water by cup. According to the manufacturers, you save around 66% of the electricity usually used to boil a kettle. Boiling excess water each time you use your kettle adds up to a significant amount of electricity.

This eco-friendly kettle also boasts a flat heating element. This feature allows it to heat the water quickly, in turn using much less electricity. This wireless kettle has a light on its on switch to indicate when the kettle is on, the light goes out when the kettle has boiled. Simple! Kettle-like! But eco-friendly!!

Energenie is a new eco-friendly, energy efficient device which has been designed to reduce all your energy bills. It’s estimated that 8% of the cost of your electricity bill is made up of power used while on standby mode and most people still use the standby mode.

The Energenie is a device which acts as a go-between the appliance and the power source. Once connected, it automatically detects when the appliance is in standby mode and cuts off the power supply.

We think that this kind of feature should come with all new appliances, but until that happens, we are happy to see some innovation taking place.

As part of its EcoVision plan, Philips launched its range of energy efficient consumer lifestyle products that enable consumers to save energy. The plan is to generate 30% of Philips’ revenue through environmentally friendly products by the year 2012, highlighting Philips’s commitment to contributing towards a cleaner world.

The new Philips energy efficient range of consumer lifestyle products is made up of three ingenious vacuum cleaners, a powerful handheld vacuum cleaner, a range of energy saving steam irons, a family of volume control and temperature regulating kettles, Blu Ray home theatre systems, Blu Ray DVD players and a range of LCD TVs.

Microsoft and Ford have just inked a deal to combine forces on producing a computerized link between people’s homes, their electric cars and the utility companies.

The system will combine Microsoft Hohm with Ford’s electric cars, specifically, next year’s Ford Focus Electric (image above). Hohm will act as an intermediary between a person’s house and the utility company and tell the owner when the most efficient and affordable time to plug their electric car in. It will also help balance demand out as it recommends charging at appropriate moments to consumers by offering reduced costs at the right time.

Smart grid technology is a burgeoning and crucial field of development for environmentally friendly technology and it’s good to see such heavy hitting companies contributing on this front.

Intel, the company behind the processors in so many of our computers and various devices, is taking a major interest in advancing its smart grid technology.

In the next month or two Intel will start pilot tests on its new home energy management devices in Oregon. Intel is also currently working on project with Tendril Networks that will let people program their home’s energy settings via their television. The TV interface allows the user to communicate with their utilities as well as the their thermostat.

Both of these projects are being designed to help consumers save money by reducing their energy usage. Reducing energy usage also helps make for a more sustainable environment, something that green consumers should be excited about.