IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v13y2020i20p5489-d431781.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Energy and Exergy of Light with Application to Societal Exergy Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew Kuperus Heun

    (Department of Engineering, Calvin University, 3201 Burton St. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, USA)

  • Zeke Marshall

    (Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK)

  • Emmanuel Aramendia

    (Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK)

  • Paul E. Brockway

    (Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK)

Abstract

Lighting provides an indispensable energy service, illumination. The field of societal exergy analysis considers light (and many other energy products) to be enablers of economic growth, and lighting contributes a non-negligible proportion of total useful exergy supplied to modern economies. In societal exergy analysis, the exergetic efficiency of electric lamps is central to determining the exergy contribution of lighting to an economy. Conventionally, societal exergy practitioners estimate the exergetic efficiency of lamps by an energy efficiency, causing confusion and, sometimes, overestimation of exergetic efficiency by a factor as large as 3. In response, we use recent results from the fields of radiation thermodynamics and photometry to develop an exact method for calculating the exergy of light and the exergetic efficiency of lamps. The exact method (a) is free of any assumptions for the value of the maximum luminous efficacy, (b) uses a non-unity spectral exergy-to-energy ratio, and (c) allows choices for the spectral luminous weighting function, which converts broad-spectrum electromagnetic radiation to light. The exact method exposes shortcomings inherent to the conventional method and leads to a reasonable approximation of lamp exergetic efficiency, when needed. To conclude, we provide three recommendations for societal exergy practitioners: use (a) the exact method when a lamp’s spectral power distribution is available, (b) the universal luminous weighting function, and (c) the reasonable approximation to the exact method when a lamp’s luminous efficacy is known but its spectral power distribution is not.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew Kuperus Heun & Zeke Marshall & Emmanuel Aramendia & Paul E. Brockway, 2020. "The Energy and Exergy of Light with Application to Societal Exergy Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-24, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:20:p:5489-:d:431781
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/20/5489/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/20/5489/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ryszard Zwierzchowski & Marcin Wołowicz, 2020. "Energy and Exergy Analysis of Sensible Thermal Energy Storage—Hot Water Tank for a Large CHP Plant in Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-16, September.
    2. Sousa, Tânia & Brockway, Paul E. & Cullen, Jonathan M. & Henriques, Sofia Teives & Miller, Jack & Serrenho, André Cabrera & Domingos, Tiago, 2017. "The Need for Robust, Consistent Methods in Societal Exergy Accounting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 11-21.
    3. Heun, Matthew Kuperus & Brockway, Paul E., 2019. "Meeting 2030 primary energy and economic growth goals: Mission impossible?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Ayres, Robert U. & Ayres, Leslie W. & Pokrovsky, Vladimir, 2005. "On the efficiency of US electricity usage since 1900," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1092-1145.
    5. Zeus Guevara & Tânia Sousa & Tiago Domingos, 2016. "Insights on Energy Transitions in Mexico from the Analysis of Useful Exergy 1971–2009," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-29, June.
    6. Whiting, Kai & Carmona, Luis Gabriel & Brand-Correa, Lina & Simpson, Edward, 2020. "Illumination as a material service: A comparison between Ancient Rome and early 19th century London," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    7. William D. Nordhaus, 1996. "Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of New Goods, pages 27-70, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. P. M. Pattison & J. Y. Tsao & G. C. Brainard & B. Bugbee, 2018. "LEDs for photons, physiology and food," Nature, Nature, vol. 563(7732), pages 493-500, November.
    9. Paoli, Leonardo & Cullen, Jonathan, 2020. "Technical limits for energy conversion efficiency," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    10. Noah Ver Beek & Elvin Vindel & Matthew Kuperus Heun & Paul E. Brockway, 2020. "Quantifying the Environmental Impacts of Cookstove Transitions: A Societal Exergy Analysis Based Model of Energy Consumption and Forest Stocks in Honduras," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-22, June.
    11. Kondo, Kumiko, 2009. "Energy and exergy utilization efficiencies in the Japanese residential/commercial sectors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3475-3483, September.
    12. Nakićenović, Nebojsa & Gilli, Paul Viktor & Kurz, Rainer, 1996. "Regional and global exergy and energy efficiencies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 223-237.
    13. Durmayaz, Ahmet & Yavuz, Hasbi, 2001. "Exergy analysis of a pressurized-water reactor nuclear-power plant," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 39-57, May.
    14. Sergio Bobbo & Laura Fedele & Marco Curcio & Anna Bet & Michele De Carli & Giuseppe Emmi & Fabio Poletto & Andrea Tarabotti & Dimitris Mendrinos & Giulia Mezzasalma & Adriana Bernardi, 2019. "Energetic and Exergetic Analysis of Low Global Warming Potential Refrigerants as Substitutes for R410A in Ground Source Heat Pumps," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-16, September.
    15. Roger Fouquet & Peter J.G. Pearson, 2006. "Seven Centuries of Energy Services: The Price and Use of Light in the United Kingdom (1300-2000)," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 139-178.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pinto, Ricardo & Henriques, Sofia T. & Brockway, Paul E. & Heun, Matthew Kuperus & Sousa, Tânia, 2023. "The rise and stall of world electricity efficiency:1900–2017, results and insights for the renewables transition," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    2. Christoph Sejkora & Johannes Lindorfer & Lisa Kühberger & Thomas Kienberger, 2021. "Interlinking the Renewable Electricity and Gas Sectors: A Techno-Economic Case Study for Austria," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-38, October.
    3. Sejkora, Christoph & Kühberger, Lisa & Radner, Fabian & Trattner, Alexander & Kienberger, Thomas, 2022. "Exergy as criteria for efficient energy systems – Maximising energy efficiency from resource to energy service, an Austrian case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PC).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laura Felício & Sofia T. Henriques & André Serrenho & Tiago Domingos & Tânia Sousa, 2019. "Insights from Past Trends in Exergy Efficiency and Carbon Intensity of Electricity: Portugal, 1900–2014," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Heun, Matthew Kuperus & Owen, Anne & Brockway, Paul E., 2018. "A physical supply-use table framework for energy analysis on the energy conversion chain," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 1134-1162.
    3. Miguel Palma & Tânia Sousa & Zeus Guevara, 2016. "How Much Detail Should We Use to Compute Societal Aggregated Exergy Efficiencies?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-13, May.
    4. Pinto, Ricardo & Henriques, Sofia T. & Brockway, Paul E. & Heun, Matthew Kuperus & Sousa, Tânia, 2023. "The rise and stall of world electricity efficiency:1900–2017, results and insights for the renewables transition," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    5. Cullen, Jonathan M. & Allwood, Julian M., 2010. "Theoretical efficiency limits for energy conversion devices," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2059-2069.
    6. Serrenho, André Cabrera & Warr, Benjamin & Sousa, Tânia & Ayres, Robert U. & Domingos, Tiago, 2016. "Structure and dynamics of useful work along the agriculture-industry-services transition: Portugal from 1856 to 2009," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-21.
    7. Aramendia, Emmanuel & Heun, Matthew K. & Brockway, Paul E. & Taylor, Peter G., 2022. "Developing a Multi-Regional Physical Supply Use Table framework to improve the accuracy and reliability of energy analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).
    8. Lin, Yuancheng & Ma, Linwei & Li, Zheng & Ni, Weidou, 2023. "The carbon reduction potential by improving technical efficiency from energy sources to final services in China: An extended Kaya identity analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PE).
    9. Serrenho, André Cabrera & Sousa, Tânia & Warr, Benjamin & Ayres, Robert U. & Domingos, Tiago, 2014. "Decomposition of useful work intensity: The EU (European Union)-15 countries from 1960 to 2009," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 704-715.
    10. Yuancheng Lin & Chinhao Chong & Linwei Ma & Zheng Li & Weidou Ni, 2021. "Analysis of Changes in the Aggregate Exergy Efficiency of China’s Energy System from 2005 to 2015," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-27, April.
    11. Brand-Correa, Lina I. & Steinberger, Julia K., 2017. "A Framework for Decoupling Human Need Satisfaction From Energy Use," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 43-52.
    12. Charalampos Michalakakis & Jeremy Fouillou & Richard C. Lupton & Ana Gonzalez Hernandez & Jonathan M. Cullen, 2021. "Calculating the chemical exergy of materials," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(2), pages 274-287, April.
    13. Lucas W Davis, 2017. "Evidence of a decline in electricity use by U.S. households," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(2), pages 1098-1105.
    14. Paul Steenwyk & Matthew Kuperus Heun & Paul Brockway & Tânia Sousa & Sofia Henriques, 2022. "The Contributions of Muscle and Machine Work to Land and Labor Productivity in World Agriculture Since 1800," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 1-17, June.
    15. Siddique, Hafiz Muhammad Abubakar & Majeed, Muhammad Tariq, 2015. "Energy consumption, economic growth, trade and financial development nexus in south asia," MPRA Paper 71245, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2015.
    16. Zeus Guevara & Tânia Sousa & Tiago Domingos, 2016. "Insights on Energy Transitions in Mexico from the Analysis of Useful Exergy 1971–2009," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-29, June.
    17. Paoli, Leonardo & Cullen, Jonathan, 2020. "Technical limits for energy conversion efficiency," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    18. Victor Court, 2019. "An Estimation of Different Minimum Exergy Return Ratios Required for Society," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 1-13, September.
    19. Gregor Semieniuk & Isabella M. Weber, 2019. "Inequality in Energy Consumption : Statistical Equilibrium or a Question of Accounting Conventions?," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2019-18, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    20. Raúl Arango-Miranda & Robert Hausler & Rabindranarth Romero-López & Mathias Glaus & Sara Patricia Ibarra-Zavaleta, 2018. "An Overview of Energy and Exergy Analysis to the Industrial Sector, a Contribution to Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:20:p:5489-:d:431781. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.