The US Department of Energy (DOE) has published new research conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) that documents residential consumption of lighting across the country, including breakdowns of the data by state and region. The report entitled "Residential lighting end-use consumption study: Estimation framework and initial estimates" is accompanied by spreadsheets that allow filtering of the data and an interactive US map.
The report details lighting use by lamp characteristics, household characteristics, and where lamps are used within a home. The results include hours of use (HOU) statistics along with energy used broken down by geography.
Some highlights of the report include the identification of Massachusetts, New York, and California for using the least power for lighting with the states averaging less than 1500 kWh/year in each home. In contrast, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Missouri, and Arizona average more than 2100 kWh/year. The national average is just over 1700 kWh/year.
As you may expect exterior lighting has both the highest daily HOU at 2.9 hours and energy consumption at 1.61 kWh averaged nationally. Indoors, kitchen lighting comes in with an HOU of 2.3 hours and 0.481 kWh.
The PNNL gathered data from recent regional and national studies including end-use metering studies that were correlated with household characteristic data and lighting product inventory data. The report noted that extrapolations were necessary in some regions where complete data wasn't available. But the researchers verified the accuracy of the estimates for California lending credibility to the entire dataset. Moreover the methodology will enable simple updates as more regional research becomes available.
The website dedicated to the project includes an interactive map allowing viewers to get a quick snapshot of the data by state, Moreover there are Excel spreadsheets for download for both Windows and Apple computers that allow custom filtering of the data. The 62-page report is downloadable as a PDF.
