The report also details specific products, including comprehensive and detailed estimates of the national inventory of installed lighting products, as well as their performance characteristics, associated energy use, and lumen production – a measure of brightness. The report helps chart progress made toward the goal of transitioning to more energy-efficient lighting technologies across four sectors: residential buildings, commercial buildings, industrial buildings, and outdoor applications.
The study shows that in 2010, lighting used approximately 700 terawatt-hours (TWh), or nearly19% of the electricity produced in the United States. Of the total energy used for lighting, the commercial sector consumed nearly half, or 349 TWh, primarily with fluorescent lighting products. While there are nearly 6 billion light bulbs installed in the residential sector, far more than the approximately 2 billion lamps in the commercial buildings sector, the mostly incandescent residential lamps were not used nearly as much per day, on average, as lights in the commercial sector.
The new report is an update to a similar DOE report that modeled the 2001 US lighting market inventory. During the intervening decade, two overarching trends emerged:
DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. Learn more about DOE's support of research and development of energy-efficient solid-state lighting, and visit our Energy Savers lighting choices website to start saving money by saving energy.
[Inset: CFL Bulb by Peter Griffin]
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