Efficiency improvement opportunities for ceiling fans

Ceiling fans contribute significantly to residential electricity consumption, especially in developing countries with warm climates. This paper provides an analysis of costs and benefits of several options to improve the efficiency of ceiling fans to assess the global potential for electricity savings and green house gas (GHG) emission reductions. Ceiling fan efficiency can be cost-effectively improved by at least 50 % using commercially available technology. If these efficiency improvements are implemented in all ceiling fans sold by 2020, 70 TWh/year could be saved and 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-e) emissions per year could be avoided, globally. We assess how policies and programs such as standards, labels, and financial incentives can be used to accelerate the adoption of efficient ceiling fans in order to realize potential savings.