Remix.run Logo
▲ reorder9695 19 hours ago

On the other hand more stoves are electric now rather than gas, new builds frequently have air source heating where they would've had gas or oil boilers, more cars are electric; all of which are huge percentages of a household's total energy consumption compared to something like lighting.

▲dgacmu 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But that's a very modern perspective:

1950: Lighting was 30% of total electrical demand [1] 1993-1997: 112 TWh, 9% of demand [2] 2020: 81 TWh, 6% of demand [3]

Couldn't find total used in 1950 but the point remains: Lighting used to be a major source of consumption and now it's pretty minor, and at least the trends in the last 30 years have been driven by efficiency gains, particularly following the energy crisis in the 70s.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222531686_Exergy_po...

[2] https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl-40...

[3] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=99&t=3

▲madaxe_again 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not necessarily. In the bad old days folks would draw a continuous kW or more in the evenings just for lighting. 8kWh for an evening of lighting, or 1kWh for dinner, and 1kWh for lighting.

As for gas or oil boilers - oil is uncommon except in rural areas - gas is far more common but not as ubiquitous in the past as you’d think - many folks heated their homes with resistive electric radiators or IR heaters - so a heat pump is a huge efficiency win.