How much household electricity consumption is actually saved by replacement with Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs)?

Many countries have promoted the replacement of conventional lamps with next-generation lamps to reduce electricity usage for lighting. In Japan, the majority of the lamps sold at home appliance mass merchant shops have been changed from incandescent lamps to energy-saving lamps. All conventional lamps are planned to be replaced with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by 2020. Although the energy-saving effect of LEDs has been stressed in many engineering studies, the amount of electricity that is actually saved by the installation of LEDs has not been examined. Using microlevel data from the Survey on Carbon Dioxide Emission from Households (SCDEH), we compare monthly electricity usage between households using conventional lamps and those using LEDs. Our empirical results demonstrate that households have reduced their electricity usage by 1.96% through past LEDization. Households can reduce their electricity usage by an additional 6.99% when LEDization is completed. The empirical results further demonstrate that middle-income households have higher price elasticity of electricity demand and are more likely to receive greater benefit from LED installation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]