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

Anderson, Ben, Rushby, Tom, Bahaj, Abubakr and James, Patrick (2021) The effects of LED light bulb installation on electricity demand in UK households: results of a large n randomised control trial. Energy Evaluation Europe: 2021 Europe Conference: Accelerating the energy transition for all: Evaluation's role in effective policy making, Online. 10 - 16 Mar 2021.

Transcript

1. The effects of LED light bulb installation on electricity demand in UK households Results of a large-n randomised control trial 11th March 2021 Ben Anderson @dataknut
2. 3 The Menu • The problem – Peak electricity demand • The solution – Reducing & shifting demand • Seeing the light – Large n LED light bulb trial • Did it work?
3. 4 Despite this… • UK Generation – 2009 – 2019 • The peak is still – Peaky – Expensive – Carbon intense • What to do? – Reduce it – Shift it Data source: https://data.nationalgrideso.com/carbon-intensity1/historic-generation-mix/r/historic_gb_generation_mix
4. 5 Can LED lights help? • South East England – Stratified random sample – N ~= 4000 households (representative) – Randomly allocated to 4 trial groups (n ~ 1,000) LED trial was one of these Hours of daylight
5. 6 Can LED lights help? • South East England – Stratified random sample – N ~= 4000 households (representative) – Randomly allocated to 4 trial groups (n ~ 1,000) • Data – http://www.energy.soton.ac.uk/save-data-sources/ – W every 10 seconds – Wh every 15 minutes – Household surveys LED trial was one of these Monitoring Data cloud Analysts
6. 7 Implementation • Install: Up to 10 LED bulbs for free • 76% (882) agreed
7. 8 Where were they put? l Maximum theoretical total installed saving = 155 kW across group l Actual total installed = 124 kW Mean: 176W per household 60% already had 1 or more
8. 9 What happened? • Mean Wh • 16:00 – 20:00 We need a difference in difference model! Hours of daylight
9. 10 What happened? • Difference in difference model • 16:00 – 20:00 only • Lack of precision – see 90% confidence intervals • Relatively small effect • Big inter-household variation
10. 11 What happened (long term)? • 16:00 – 20:00 • Difference in difference model • Effect persisted to winter 2018
11. 12 Was it worth it? • ‘Biggest’ week (mid-winter): – Max peak-hours reduction: 47W (8%) in w/c 1 January 2018 – Median: -31W in peak per household – Median: -3.9 kWh per household per week – ~£0.70/week! • Modelled 500 customer substation: – ~24 kW peak load reduction (~ 3 EVs) – ~90kWh annual per customer (£16.00) • Sometimes cost effective – https://save-project.co.uk/energy-efficiency/ 176W installed
12. YOUR QUESTIONS b.anderson@soton.ac.uk @dataknut https://save-project.co.uk/energy-efficiency/