With technology and information constantly changing, as well as its varied availability, it is often difficult to get an accurate read on lighting-industry metrics. But now, thanks to a recently released Department of Energy (DOE) Report—the 2010 U.S. Lighting Market Characterization—a big-picture view of U.S. lighting is a little clearer. The report provides an overview by sector (residential, commercial, industrial, and outdoor) and detailed information on the current inventory of installed lamps by type (incandescent, halogen, compact fluorescent, linear fluorescent, high-intensity discharge, and solid state or other), along with their energy use and lumen output.
Although the 2010 report might already appear out of date–though it was just released in Jan. 2012–it does represent the first significant update of this information since the DOE released a similar report in 2001-2002.
As the DOE, and the department’s Solid-State Lighting program pushes forward with its mandate to champion energy-efficient, white-light LED technology and integration, one must understand the trends in the overall lighting market. This report helps put those conditions into perspective.
The two most noticeable developments this past decade have been a “push toward higher-efficacy lighting” and an “increased demand for light.” Improved efficacy directly correlates to evolving lamp technologies.
And while the report indicates that LED lighting for general-illumination applications is still below the 1 percent mark, that percentage will increase greatly as more and more LED luminaires make their way to market in the future.
2010 U.S. Lighting Market Characterization The Department of Energy’s detailed report analyzes the U.S. lighting market by technology and sector, and provides an assessment of the installed lamp inventory and their associated energy use. The report is available at http://1.usa.gov/yr0cQb.
In 2010, lighting accounted for approximately 700 terawatt-hours, or approximately 19 percent of total U.S. electricity use.
Residences account for 71 percent of all lamp installations nationwide, at 5.8 billion lamps.
The commercial buildings sector is the second-largest sector with 25 percent of all installations and 2.1 billion lamps.
The outdoor and industrial sectors are significantly smaller, each accounting for roughly 2 percent of all lamps installed, 180 million and 140 million lamps, respectively.
The average number of sockets per U.S. household went from 43 in 2001 to 51 in 2010.
The average system efficacy of installed lighting increased from 45 lumens per watt in 2001 to 58 lumens per watt in 2010.
Source:2010 U.S. Lighting Market Characterization Report
