On 2006-08-24 12:53:29 +0100, "Christian McArdle"
said:

Lighting is probably the least of my domestic expenditures of the
electrical flavour. I would say that fridges and freezers run to more
than that.

You would be surprised. When I first swapped all our incandescent bulbs
for CFLs, in about 1996, I measured the electricity usage before and
after. The electricity usage went down to 60% of its previous value.
Therefore, we concluded that lighting was about 50% of our electrical
usage. The gas bill was about the same as the electric, so I suspect,
making a guess that gas provides more CO2 emissions than electricity on
a cost basis), that wasteful lighting was emitting a good sixth of the
house CO2 emissions. If everyone changed, that would be an extremely
substantial benefit.

Not really convinced....



Lighting is probably the least of my domestic expenditures of the
electrical flavour. I would say that fridges and freezers run to more
than that.

And the other 'permanently on' stuff is not insignificant either..PABX,
router, printers, TV head amp, etc...

You should note that our house had no multiple halogen fittings or such
like. Every room was lit by a single incandescent bulb in the middle. A
halogen equiped house is likely to spend well over half the electricity
bill on lighting. A fridge probably only draws about 100W over a
continuous period. Little electronic devices probably only a couple of
watts each. Nothing compared to lightbulbs, which are often
continuously lit throughout the day, especially in winter.

Christian.

I'd have to factor in all of my various servers and networking equipment......