US Lighting Industry Statistics

Just how big is the US lighting industry?

Well here are some interesting facts:

• There are approximately 4 billion light bulb sockets in the US. This includes both residential and commercial.
• Of the 2 billion residential sockets in the US, only about 10% are compact fluorescent.
• The US purchases about 2 billion residential light bulbs a year or about 5.5 million bulbs a day.
• The average US house has 45 bulbs in 30 fixtures, there are 116.9 million US households. (2006)
• The US spends approximately $71 billion a year in electricity on lighting. That is 22% of the total US electricity bill. (2006)
• The average US electric rate is $0.1008 / kWh or about 1o cents. (2006)
• Average US household use for lighting: 1950 kWh per household (2002)
• Philips passed GE as the largest US light bulb manufacturer with it's November 26th 2007 purchase of Genlyte. Prior to that GE, a company founded by Thomas Edison in the 1800's, was the largest manufacturer of light bulbs.
• Philips has announced that they will phase out the manufacturing of incandescent light bulbs by 2016. The first large lighting manufacturer in North America to support the shift to more efficient lighting technologies. (2007)
• In California, an estimated 73 million incandescent light bulbs and 6 million compact fluorescent are sold each year. (2007)

These facts are compiles from various sources including the Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Philips.