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Displays Power Stats United States

New Evidence of a Decline In Electricity Use By U.S. Households (wordpress.com) 318

Posted by EditorDavid from the conservation-works dept.
There's some surprising news from the Energy Institute at the University of California's business school. America's households are using less electricity than they did five years ago. So what is different? Energy-efficient lighting. Over 450 million LEDs have been installed to date in the United States, up from less than half a million in 2009, and nearly 70% of Americans have purchased at least one LED bulb. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) are even more common, with 70%+ of households owning some CFLs. All told, energy-efficient lighting now accounts for 80% of all U.S. lighting sales.

It is no surprise that LEDs have become so popular. LED prices have fallen 94% since 2008, and a 60-watt equivalent LED lightbulb can now be purchased for about $2. LEDs use 85% less electricity than incandescent bulbs, are much more durable, and work in a wide-range of indoor and outdoor settings.
"I would add LED TVs replacing LCD, Plasma and CRTs," writes Slashdot reader schwit1.
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New Evidence of a Decline In Electricity Use By U.S. Households More

New Evidence of a Decline In Electricity Use By U.S. Households

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  • BS detected (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @04:42PM (#54456275)
    When they say "I would add LED TVs replacing LCD, Plasma and CRTs" do they mean real ultra-expensive LED TV's, or do they mean those mainstream TV's that use LCD technology but call themselves LED because reasons?

    • Re:BS detected (Score:5, Informative)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @04:50PM (#54456309)
      LCD TVs using LED backlights were dubbed "LED TVs" to distinguish them from the original batch of LCD TVs which used CCFL backlights.

      • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Incidentally, generally speaking LCD TVs are still a step back from plasma. AMOLED on the other hand...

        • Re:BS detected (Score:5, Funny)

          by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @06:25PM (#54456623)

          Every time I heard "plasma something" on Star Trek, the hardware in question ended up exploding.

          Plasma TV? No thanks.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Sebby ( 238625 )
            My old plasma TV put out a fair amount of heat - nothing scorching, but there was definitively a convection of warm air coming out of it. The LCD that replaced it when the plasma got smashed? Barely anything.

        • Incidentally, generally speaking LCD TVs are still a step back from plasma.

          That really depends on how you define better. Plasma TVs use phosphors, which means that they are susceptible to burn in, which means they can be problematic for PC and gaming use. Furthermore, in places where cooling is an issue (here in Phoenix for example) plasma sucks because it produces a LOT of heat, not only using more electricity just to run it, but extra time running the air conditioner as well.

    • Oh chill (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @06:33PM (#54456655)

      Enough with the nerd rage over marketing terms. You should be clever enough to have figured out that "LED TV" is used to mean "LCD TV with an LED backlight instead of CCFL" and OLED TVs are called, well, OLED. The LED backlight is, by the way, not a trivial thing when it comes to power use. If you look at an LCD most of the power it consumes comes from the backlight, with only a bit from the panel itself. So if you replace an older style set that uses CCFL backlights with a newer ones that uses LED backlights, you cut power consumption by a non-trivial amount.

      • Reminds me of a few years ago my sister (who is very environmentally conscious) was using Blackle [blackle.com] instead of Google in order to save energy (they even advertise the number of watt hours "saved" under the search bar).

        She was a bit dejected when I informed her that LCD screens don't use less energy displaying black vs. white, since black is merely produced by blocking the light, and that the only way to save power was to turn the brightness on her laptop down.

        • the only way to save power was to turn the brightness on her laptop down

          one positive thing about the cell phone era is this fact is really front and center with any phone over a couple years old. Not sure people would really notice their laptop battery life from screen usage given the amount of charge it can hold.

          A cell phone on the other hand shows that quite quickly

          • Well the thing about smart phones is a lot of them have OLED screens, where it makes more sense that displaying a black pixel uses less power than a white pixel. Although TBH I don't know for sure if that is the case.

            • I think that's a relatively recent development. I have a Nexus 5 that's still IPS. I suspect the switch over, if it hasn't mostly happened, will switch pretty quickly once it starts so within a year or 2

        • She was a bit dejected when I informed her that LCD screens don't use less energy displaying black vs. white, since black is merely produced by blocking the light, and that the only way to save power was to turn the brightness on her laptop down.

          If her phone was using an emissive LED tech, such as the Galaxy S7's OLED display (and a fairly long list of others), a black screen does use less energy.

          It's only LCD displays with LED backlights that behave as you describe.

        • Makes me laugh because pretty much the same thing happened to me.

          My mom called and asked about Blackle, which I'd never heard of, and if she really needed to use it. My "save the world little sister" had changed her computer to use it, but mom found it harder to read. I told her no, with LCDs it doesn't matter. Also even funnier is that it actually ever so slightly increases power usage on many LCDs. Why? Well TN panels, which are still quite popular (and were pretty much the only thing back then) are white

    • I would add: high efficiency heating and cooling units - insulation requirements in building codes, plus the fact that the McMansion trend has topped out and we're not adding 100 sq ft per year to the average home size lately.

      That's o.k. - wait for rechargeable electric vehicles to get some adoption in the marketplace, electricity usage will rise again.

  • EV charging (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rfengr ( 910026 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @05:09PM (#54456373)
    Will probably shoot back up as more electric vehicles are purchased. Though it will be more night time charging.
    • EV charging will have a huge impact on businesses from what I am seeing, especially as office density generally seems to be increasing. At 20% EV penetration you would expect building electrical demand to go up by 10%, which is really huge given how predictable commercial building loads have been over the years. On-site PV may help buffer it some in the winter, but some of my clients are very nervous.

      But, then autonomous cars may change the formula again...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by crow ( 16139 )

        No, I think you're making a flawed assumption.

        If people typically charge their cars at their workplaces, then yes, daytime usage and commercial usage will both see a jump over the next few years. But I don't think that's going to be terribly prevalent. I think most people will charge at home at night. The push for workplace charging has been mainly due to the short range of EVs--most have been around 60-80 miles, which means charging at work makes a huge difference. As we move to the 200+ mile range wit

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          Note that if EV becomes more prevalent, expect more charging ports at work, but for many of those outlets to be off. I would anticipate the charging network at work to allow only X amount of charging, and the behavior would be negotiated based on things like the claimed remaining range of a car.

          Also expect employment to partner with companies like chargepoint, so that the employees will pay for whatever they use, perhaps at some premium to discourage at-work charging...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mysidia ( 191772 )

            so that the employees will pay for whatever they use, perhaps at some premium to discourage at-work charging...

            That don't make sense. Companies are more likely to want to encourage at-work charging, but in a manner that doesn't cost the company $$$, so parterning with Chargepoint, etc makes sense.

        • Why would I charge at home at night? If I share at work, my job may pay for it. And really, I'm just going to charge whenever I'm near a plug, because I don't want to run out (can't just go to a gas station). The idea that people will charge when convenient for the network vs when convenient for them is a bit silly

          • Why would I charge at home at night? If I share at work, my job may pay for it.

            Well, let's put it this way. If your job is currently happy to pay for your gasoline or diesel right now, then yes, I expect they'll be happy to pay for your electrons instead (especially as it will cost them less, at least until the driving infrastructure taxation catches up.)

            If they don't, however, I think you can most likely look forward to feeding an electron vending machine your money, assuming there are charging facilities

          • He doesn't subscribe to the theory that human motivation is the dominant driver of human economics.

            He is wrong of course, but its pervasive throughout. Wishful thinking instead of skilled prediction.

            If no disruptive technologies come forth, its a pretty sure bet that people will charge up wherever its "free" to do so, and one of the places where it will be "free" are shopping centers. Home Depot will charge you up while you shop because their competition Lowes doesn't, forcing Lowes to offer "free" char
          • I agree. I plug in my phone whenever I can. I don't care if it is at 98%. If it sits on a table until it gets down to 50% and then I need it more then I thought that night and it dies on me I'll be kicking myself. I'll have the same philosophy with EVs.
        • people won't 'fully' charge at work, but range anxiety ensures they will be charging at work.

          I have a 75 mile round trip and would LOVE an electric vehicle. Beyond the current production teslas, nothing has enough range to reliably handle that commute...given battery degradaton, AC or heater usage, even 100 mi range likely isn't enough

          People will want to be topping up while at work.

          An interesting caveat, I have garage parking at work. People might opt for outdoor parking so they could deploy thei

          • A Leaf with the 30kWh battery would handle that commute easily. Also, the range of the Chevy Spark would probably be sufficient.

            But.... it does depend on where you live. I noticed a significant reduction in range during the very mild N. Cal winter in my Leaf.

            • specified ranges are what I call SoCal ranges - no AC, no heat, no traffic. I'm not sure I'd really trust a 100 mi range for a real world 75 commute in the heat of the south or the frigid cold of winter - after a 3-4 years of degradation. Swapping out the battery that often negates the significant savings of vehicle electricification

              I wonder what even a small solar panel on the roof might do to help out.

  • Key word "households" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @06:52PM (#54456729)

    The number of people in an average household has decreased [statista.com]. It's not surprising that fewer individuals use less electricity.

    • The number of people in an average household has decreased [statista.com]. It's not surprising that fewer individuals use less electricity.

      Nope. It's just a bad summary. TFA deals with "U.S. residential electricity consumption per capita 1990-2015," so if they mean "households," it's on a collective basis rather than per household.

      However, I find it hard to believe that lighting alone is responsible for this (though I might be biased since I've long used CFLs, was an early adopter of LEDs, and would not even consider incandescents for general use). Could it also be more energy-efficient computer processors (and more laptops, tablet, etc. usage

    • They pretty much outlawed the standard 60 watt and higher incandescent light bulb in the US, people can't as easily buy them. LED and CFL bulbs are being introduced to households through attrition as old bulbs die, not because people are excited for them. Some LEDs are damn close to 'the look' now though.

  • You cant discount dvr cutback due to cable cutting and streaming. Dvrs were the 2nd highest usage next to hvac a few years ago. Also cpus in dvrs got more efficient
  • I recently had to put in a maintenance request to have the florescent tubes in the light fixture over the bathroom sink. I told the maintenance guy that there must be something wrong with the light fixture, as the tubes only last two to six months before needing replacement again. I got CFLs over my kitchen table that are 5+ years old. The maintenance guy laughed and told me that this was by design. If the florescent tubes go out every six months, maintenance — and the leasing office, indirectly — will have two opportunities each year to get into each apartment to look for problems not being reported.

    • If you're paying for the electricity, and the lights, I'd demand LED since the longer term will cost less.

      I replaced all of my lighting with LED in my home. I'm renting.

      In my basement I replaced three 4ft florescent light fixtures (with 2 tubes each) in my basement with LED tubes by rewiring the light enclosure (ie. cutting out the ballast, and wiring directly to the tombstones, yes with landlords consent). Went from 6 fluorescent tubes to 3 LED tubes and I'm getting even better light output. The electricit

    • Re:There's efficency and then there's effiencey... (Score:4, Informative)

      by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @10:51PM (#54457539) Journal

      The maintenance guy laughed and told me that this was by design. If the florescent tubes go out every six months, maintenance â" and the leasing office, indirectly â" will have two opportunities each year to get into each apartment to look for problems not being reported.

      Bullshit. What's happened is that the ballast is not working properly and the maintenance people make more money replacing tubes every 6 months than replacing the ballast.

  • Given that domestic power consumption is insignificant compared to industrial and commercial use, how relevant is this? How is power consumption overall affected?

  • Knock-on effect on cooling (Score:3)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Sunday May 21, 2017 @12:42AM (#54457785)

    For those of us who live in hot / temperate places where air conditioning is a way of life, going to LED lights and LED-backlit TVs have a knock-on effect -- much less energy is wasted as heat - heat that then has to be dealt with by the air conditioning systems.

    Surely the power companies knew this was coming, right?

    On a related tangent, I'm old enough to remember the first wave of solar euphoria euphoria in the 70's. That wave really didn't go anywhere fast. Solar panels aren't efficient enough to power tungsten and CRT, and fluorescent lighting isn't that much more efficient.. but with LED? Yeah, solar now really does have a chance.. but not because solar.. but because LED... oh and modern batteries / capacitors to hold stored energy.

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