Country Lighting Assessments quantify the energy savings benefits for both on-grid and off-grid lighting around the world.

In the on-grid market, replacing all inefficient lighting globally would result in 939 TWh (terawatt hours) of electricity savings annually—approximately five per cent of global electricity consumption. This is equivalent to the combined yearly electricity consumption of India and Mexico. To compare the estimated savings with other common units, 939 TWh of electricity would be equivalent to 80.8 Mtoe (million tons of oil equivalent) savings. It is also equal to the annual electrical output of 250 large (500 MW) coal-fired power plants. In terms of energy savings among the main two groups of UNFCCC signatories, approximately 56 percent of the savings would be realized in Annex I countries and approximately 44 percent of these energy savings would be in Non-Annex I countries.

In the off-grid market, the Country Lighting Assessments identify the opportunities for energy savings from kerosene lamps, candles, torches (flashlights) and other technologies used by over 1.3 billion people for illumination. Global consumption of kerosene for lighting is estimated at over 25 billion litres per year, used in over 690 million kerosene lamps.

Figure 1: Percentage of estimated electricity savings relative to national annual consumption for on-grid lighting in 2010