Data
The price for lighting in the United Kingdom
What you should know about this indicator
- To calculate the price of lighting – today or historically – three different prices need to be known: (1) the prices of the relevant energy source, (2) the equipment to provide this light (e.g. a kerosene lamp), (3) how efficiently the available technology at the time can turn the energy into light. The latter is referred to as the lighting technology efficiency in the literature and is measured in units of energy used for each lumen-hour of light generated.
- Prices are weighted from the combination of lighting sources at any given period of time. For example, prices of lighting from candles, whale oil, and gas will differ. The average price is, therefore, weighted by the share of each source in total lighting consumption.
- This data is adjusted for inflation, using long-run consumer price indices from the Bank of England's A Millennium of Macroeconomic Data dataset.
- We calculated a 5-year rolling average to smooth out short-term fluctuations and highlight longer-term trends in the price of lighting.
The price for lighting in the United Kingdom
The price for lighting per million lumen-hours. 1 lumen-hour is equal to the luminous energy emitted in 1 hour by a light source emitting a luminous flux of 1 lumen. For comparison: a standard 100W incandescent light bulb emits around 1600 lumen.
Source
Fouquet (2026); Fouquet and Pearson (2006) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 21, 2026
Next expected update
January 2027
Date range
1300–2023
Unit
constant 2000 US$ per million lumen-hours
What you should know about this indicator
- To calculate the price of lighting – today or historically – three different prices need to be known: (1) the prices of the relevant energy source, (2) the equipment to provide this light (e.g. a kerosene lamp), (3) how efficiently the available technology at the time can turn the energy into light. The latter is referred to as the lighting technology efficiency in the literature and is measured in units of energy used for each lumen-hour of light generated.
- Prices are weighted from the combination of lighting sources at any given period of time. For example, prices of lighting from candles, whale oil, and gas will differ. The average price is, therefore, weighted by the share of each source in total lighting consumption.
- This data is adjusted for inflation, using long-run consumer price indices from the Bank of England's A Millennium of Macroeconomic Data dataset.
- We calculated a 5-year rolling average to smooth out short-term fluctuations and highlight longer-term trends in the price of lighting.
The price for lighting in the United Kingdom
The price for lighting per million lumen-hours. 1 lumen-hour is equal to the luminous energy emitted in 1 hour by a light source emitting a luminous flux of 1 lumen. For comparison: a standard 100W incandescent light bulb emits around 1600 lumen.
Source
Fouquet (2026); Fouquet and Pearson (2006) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 21, 2026
Next expected update
January 2027
Date range
1300–2023
Unit
constant 2000 US$ per million lumen-hours
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
We calculated a 5-year rolling average to smooth out short-term fluctuations and highlight longer-term trends in the price of lighting.
Reuse this work
- All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: The price for lighting in the United Kingdom”, part of the following publication: Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Arriagada, and Bertha Rohenkohl (2023) - “Light at Night”. Data adapted from Fouquet. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260130-095549/grapher/the-price-for-lighting-per-million-lumen-hours-in-the-uk-in-british-pound.html [online resource] (archived on January 30, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
Fouquet (2026); Fouquet and Pearson (2006) – with major processing by Our World in DataFull citation
Fouquet (2026); Fouquet and Pearson (2006) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “The price for lighting in the United Kingdom” [dataset]. Fouquet, “A Historical Perspective on Energy Innovation” [original data]. Retrieved February 3, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260130-095549/grapher/the-price-for-lighting-per-million-lumen-hours-in-the-uk-in-british-pound.html (archived on January 30, 2026).