Winding down from the winter holiday season is the perfect opportunity to remind everyone that the combined number of American household Christmas lights and decorations use up more electricity in a few weeks than many developing countries do annually.
According to a recent blog post by the Center for Global Development (CGD) , this figure sits at around 6.63 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, although the introduction of energy-conserving LED-based Christmas lights should slightly offset this figure in the coming years.
Compared to America’s overall annual consumption, lighting accounts for only 14% of residential electricity consumption , and is only 0.2% of the Nations entire annual consumption, but it’s still enough energy to power 14 million refrigerators or entire developing nations like El Salvador (5.35 billion kWh), Ethiopia (5.30 billion kWh), Tanzania (4.31 billion kWh), Cambodia (3.06 billion kWh) and Nepal (3.28 billion kWh).
Judging by the CIA’s World Factbook, however, Christmas Light usages also tops the national electricity consumption of Honduras, Armenia, Afghanistan, Uganda, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Malta, and Mauritius.
The CGD research was based on a 2008 study from the U.S. Energy Information Administration; it was conducted by fellows Todd Moss and Priscilla Agyapong as a means of demonstrating the tremendous energy gap between wealthy and poor nations. “Lights are something we take for granted, but a lot of countries around the world don't have enough electricity to run a refrigerator or create jobs,” says Moss.
He explains that 2008 data will have only increased as in tandem with the increase in the size of the average American home, though they will eventually decline when energy-efficient lighting becomes the norm.
Advertisement
Learn more about Electronic Products Magazine
