DELight: A step towards understanding home lighting
DELight: A step towards understanding home lighting
In a joint effort by the Environmental Change Unit at Oxford University (UK), NUTEK (Sweden), and RAESECU (Germany), usage patterns, attitudes, and the savings potential for home lighting in these three countries are being investigated. The overall aim of the project, named DELight, is to propose ways to overcome the barriers to introducing CFLs as a direct retrofit for incandescent lamps in the European residential sector. However, findings will also be useful for all types of residential lighting programs.
Following up on the findings of the recent Decade project, as well as other research projects, DELight is trying to establish a picture of what really governs people's choices when it comes to home lighting. To the surprise of many, the Decade project revealed UK home lighting as a much more worthwhile target for energy efficiency programs than previously believed (see article Models and Meters Make the Difference).
Residential lighting energy use on a European-wide level is poorly understood, and one aim of DELight is to collect the data needed to make reliable estimates in in this area. Therefore, one of ECU's tasks within DELight is to build up a European-wide database of sales figures for residential light sources, in order to construct a model similar to that established in the Decade project.
Other tasks of the DELight project are aimed at determining the factors governing the choice of home lighting and assessing the technical and realistic potential for introducing CFLs. Unlike previous EU studies (see guest article, 3/96), DELight will collect sales data and carry out experimental studies in private homes.
NUTEK is coordinating one study, covering all three countries, in which home visits will be made in 24 homes per country. Luminaires will be investigated in an hands-on test to see if it is technically possible to fit in a self-ballasted CFL. Both the surveyor and the owner of the home will also make an independent judgment of how well appearance and color can be accepted. "We are well aware of the problems of such a survey", says Heini-Maria Suvilehto at Nutek. "The survey partly has to be carried out during day-time, and the response of home-owners will be influenced somewhat by the person that carries out the study. Nevertheless, we think it can give us valuable information to complement other studies."
The German RAESECU, based in Kiel, will coordinate another study more focused on the social and behavioral aspects of lighting. The study will seek to identify the cultural barriers to CFL use and try to identify prospective future users. For those households that already have a few CFLs but have not bought more, the study will try to determine why they did not do so. This telephone study will be conducted in Germany, UK, and Sweden, as well as in Spain, to establish the cultural variations in lighting needs across a wider range of European countries.
Results of the study are to be available early in 1998.
Nils Borg
Contact: Jane Palmer, ECU
Tel: +44 1865 281 209
Fax: +44 1865 281 202
E-mail: Jane.Palmer@ecu.ox.ac.uk