"LED lights making dent in UK energy demand"

From the BBC:

The new analysis of government figures comes from the environmental analysis website Carbon Brief. Its author says EU product standards on light bulbs, fridges, vacuum cleaners and other appliances have played a substantial part in reducing energy demand.

But in the meantime, humble energy efficiency has contributed to cutting energy demand by 103 TWh. In other words, in the carbon-cutting contest, efficiency has won – so far. And what’s more, efficiency is uncontroversial, unlike wind and solar.

All good stuff, as far as I can see, even if you put the climate change wibble to one side.

Whether the UK government would have imposed the same product standards as the EU is unknown, but there is no reason to assume it couldn’t have done so; whether consumers and manufacturers would have responded the same way in the absence of such standards is also unknown, but hey. Higher electricity prices (with or without taxes on top) will tend to have this effect all by themselves.