Start reducing your carbon footprint and saving on energy bills by improving your lighting—one of the easiest and quickest changes to make. Lights are the most visible and an easy source to recognize as an energy user. Walk through your home and quickly inventory the bulbs in use. You then simply plug a few numbers into an equation, simple math, and no complex cost-recovery analysis. The Bulbs Everyone is familiar with the older incandescent bulbs, much better as heaters than a light bulb. You likely have different types of bulbs in your home, ranging from least to most efficient. These are listed from least efficient to the most efficient: Incandescent, halogen, cold cathode ray tubes (CCFLs), compact fluorescent (CFLs), tube fluorescent, and of course the most efficient, LEDs. Wattage is the measurement indicating the amount of energy required to produce light.
Bulb Facts
When purchasing bulbs, check the lumens to determine brightness. A third consideration whether the bulb is warm or cool. Warm lights are better suited for the den, TV room, or bedrooms. Cooler lights work best in places like the home office, kitchen, utility room, or garage. Daylight bulbs in a TV room can be overwhelming, leaving you feeling like living in a failed science experiment. This color temperature is the Kelvin rating of the bulb. Most homes will include bulbs in the 2700k to 3000k range. Daylights at 6000k are better suited to rooms used for tasks, a utility room or a workbench in a shop.
Lighting Math
The numbers the utility company measures our energy consumption by the watt, so, reducing lighting wattage is important. How do we figure out the savings by replacing every bulb in our home, simple math. The equation is as follows; Watts x Hours/day x Days/Yr = Total Watts / kWh (1000) x Electric Rate = Total Cost For example let us use a 60w incandescent bulb for comparison: 60w x 10 hrs/day x 365 days = 237,250 total watts / 1000 x $0.064 = $14.01 Now let us look at an LED bulb with the same numbers: 8.5w x 10 hrs/day x 365 = 31,025 / 1000 x $0.064 = $1.98 That represents a savings of $12.03. Well that is pretty visible. The average home has average of 20-24 bulbs which translates into $240.60, or with LED $54.90. LED bulbs will very quickly return on their investment. Leaving the lights on has a different meaning now? The other missing consideration in this equation is the life of the bulb, incandescent bulbs are notorious for their short life (1000 hrs), remember, they are better heaters than a light source. Compact fluorescent bulbs are better but no match for the LED bulb, and some of them have a 50,000 hour rated lifetime. When we are comparing incandescent to LED; the incandescent bulbs will need to be changed many times, this alone costs more than an LED bulb.
Additional Savings
Save more energy by installing dimmers or motion sensors. Leaving the lights on is costly, even more when nobody is in the room. Now you have the basics on how to calculate the cost of running a light and the energy used. Remember to include this energy reduction into your carbon footprint. Have a question about lighting?
Sustainability is “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs” From: Our Common Future