Pool Light Residential Usage Survey

LED pool lighting is an energy efficient technology that lights up the swimming pool while using less energy than incandescent lamps. Previous Emerging Technology study (ET10SCE1130) logged commercial pool operating hours that was pretty typical of most commercial pools; dusk to dawn or dusk to close. Residential pool lighting hours were not logged due to various hours different homes may have along with the number of homes that needed to be sampled. This project is to phone survey SCE customers with pools on how many hours they operate the underwater pool lights in a year.

This Emerging Technology (ET) project focuses on gathering operating hour data for underwater pool lighting usage in the residential sector. The project falls under the ET Market Behavior Study (MBS) subprogram. An earlier Light Emitting Diode (LED) pool lighting project1 confirmed the technology is viable and will save energy when it replaces incandescent lighting in pools. However, to quantify the savings, it is important to know the operating hours of pool lighting. Coupled with the results of this study and the earlier LED pool lighting project, energy savings can be determined for residential pool lighting if the incumbent incandescent lighting is replaced with LED. The objective of this study is to determine how long Southern California Edison (SCE) residential customers use their underwater pool lights in a year. To gather the pool light operating data, a 10-minute survey was conducted over the internet using the SCE Customer Advisory Board (CAB – see Appendix B). The qualifying SCE CAB members were required to have a swimming pool or a spa/hot tub with underwater lights to participate in the survey. One hundred and ninety-eight interviews were conducted where 105 participants answered questions about spa lights. In addition, 189 responded to questions about swimming pool lights. As expected, more people operate their pools and spas during the summer months. Figure 1 shows a monthly breakdown of how many minutes the lights are used. A small series of questions about the type and wattage of their lights and age of their pool/spa also followed.