Posted on 03/04/2020 1:12:10 PM PST by bananaman22
Well, it happened once again. Sales of electricity in the US declined in 2019 by a significant 2.8%, despite solid domestic economic growth with real GDP increasing 2.3%. Sales across all categories of users—residential, commercial and industrial— all fell. To put this in context electricity sales have fallen in five of the past ten years.
From 2010-2019 electricity sales actually declined by a slight 0.1% while real GDP rose 22%, the population increased 7% and industrial production rose 17%. Note especially the last number. It has been an easy (and we believe lazy) claim to attribute every slackening period of electricity demand to a weak or disappearing manufacturing sector. In this ten-year period of industrial growth, electricity sales to industrial customers nevertheless declined by 2%.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
My guess would simply be the forced retirement of incandescent bulbs .... as probably the biggest factor in that.... but that’s just a guess.
A lot of low energy products out there like LED bulbs.
Perhaps appliances are more efficient.
Modern appliances and electrical machines are more efficient than older stuff so I would expect consumption to decline because of that.
Appliances and HVAC also are a lot more efficient these days
We are more efficient. Do you still wanna be belching smoke from coal fired wind turbines into the atmosphere?
Bring on the EVs!
Yes, but the overall usage, I am sure is more for lighting, and going from 60 or 100 watts to 8.5 -16.5 Watts respectively is a HELL of a lot more overall drop in usage per item than all the appliances and HVAC’s in America.
The Electoral Volts?
Well, that was my first thought...LED CFL bulbs before that...I like my incandescent bulbs though....warms up the house...like an Easy Bake oven!
Unintended consequences for forcing us to buy low energy equipment, so rates must rise to compensate the shareholders.
ummm...average home central air conditioner uses between 3500 -5000w oer hour...you can look it up.
just sayin’
My daughter recently moved into a new built house. It is far more efficient than my 25 year old house. Very tight and well insulated. Much more efficient furnace, air conditioner, appliances, and lighting. My church recently completely replaced all lighting with LED, a couple hundred fixtures. Significant reduction in energy use.
LEDs have a lot to do with it. As people make the switch from incandescent bulbs that used 90% of the power they consumed to make heat to the LED that uses 10% or less of the electricity consumed to make light.
LEDs will glow even when the switch is turned off just from the very small current leakage or from the small amount of current on the neutral wire.
I don’t doubt that, but there are a hell of a lot more light bulbs burning than AC Units running in March
LED TVs, More laptops than towers, LED lightbulbs (As you said) all adds up. My electricity consumption goes down every year, yet my bill goes up!
A statistically significant amount of private residences and businesses with solar panels or wind turbines.
Our dishwasher is much more efficient. It’s dry cycle is useless so we don’t use it. We hand-dry all the dishes.
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