Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The "Other" end-uses (appliances, lighting, electronics, and miscellaneous equipment) continue to grow. This is particularly true in new homes, where increasing floor area and amenities are leading to higher saturation of these types of devices. This paper combines the findings of several field studies to assess the current state of knowledge about the "Other" end-uses in new homes. The field studies include sub-metered measurements of occupied houses in Arizona, Florida, and Colorado, as well as device-level surveys and power measurements in unoccupied new homes. We find that appliances, lighting, electronics, and miscellaneous equipment can consume from 46 percent to 88 percent of whole-house electricity use in current low-energy homes. Moreover, the annual consumption for the "Other" end-uses is not significantly lower in new homes (even those designed for low energy use) compared to existing homes. The device-level surveys show that builder-installed equipment is a significant contributor to annual electricity consumption, and certain devices that are becoming more common in new homes, such as structured wiring systems, contribute significantly to this power consumption. These findings suggest that energy consumption by these "Other" end uses is still too large to allow cost-effective zero-energy homes.