The effects of LED light bulb installation on electricity demand in UK households: results of a large n randomised control trial

Energy efficiency is a critical component in any strategy to reduce the need for expensive GHG-intensive peak demand generation in the UK and elsewhere and reduce the need for capital intensive local distribution network reinforcement. Lighting currently consumes approximately 15% of total electricity consumption in the UK ranging from 6 to 15% for electrically heated and non-electrically heated households respectively and 14% of peak winter load . Increasing lighting efficiency could therefore offer substantial sustained residential demand reduction coinciding with known patterns of (especially) winter peak demand. In this paper we report analysis of a large-scale UK randomised-controlled trial which tested the effect of LED lightbulb installation on temporal electricity consumption in winter and estimated the consumer and network benefits of doing so.