Homeowners are taking action to lower costs and make their homes more energy efficient. Lighting improvements can be one of the fastest ways to cut your energy bills, as new lighting technologies can reduce lighting energy use in your home by >50%.

Solar-powered garden lights are a popular choice for landscape lighting as they provide a well lit pathway or accent on your plants and shrubs. Not only cheap, solar-powered lights helps eliminate the need for complicated outdoor electrical wiring.

Homeowners around the world are taking action to lower costs and to make their homes more energy efficient. Lighting improvements can be one of the fastest ways to cut your energy bills, as new lighting technologies can reduce lighting energy use in your home by 50% to 75%.

Use of energy efficient compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) in fixtures throughout your home provides highly efficient lighting. Fluorescent lamps are much more efficient than incandescent (standard) bulbs and last about 4 to 10 times longer. Today’s CFLs offer brightness and color rendition that is comparable to incandescent lights. Although compact fluorescent bulbs coast a bit more than incandescent bulbs, they pay for themselves by saving energy over the lifetime.

For ways to save money inside your home and for outdoor lighting, use these tips:

• When purchasing products, look for the ENERGY STAR (US Environmental Protection Agency or US EPA) or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) labeling
• When not in a room, turn off the lights
• Consider installation of lighting timers, photo cells, or occupancy sensor to reduce the amount of time your lights are on.
• Use task lighting, instead of brightly lighting an entire room.
• Consider three-way lamps; they make it easier to keep lighting levels low.
• Use CFLs in all the portable lamps and torchiere lamps in your home.

Outdoor lighting for both security and decoration is used by many homeowners today.  Consider PV-powered lights for area that are not close to an existing power supply line. Many stores carry lights powered by small photovoltaic (PV) modules that convert sunlight directly into electricity.

• Use outdoor lights with a photocell unit and motion sensor. This turns the light on only at night or when someone is present.
• Because of their long life, use of CPLs is an excellent choice for exterior lighting.
• High-intensity discharge (also called HID) or low-pressure sodium lights can also be part of your consideration for cost savings.

Although you can personally take action now, it’s also important to understand the government support behind programs to phase out inefficient light bulbs. In the UK, government, retailers, and energy companies are all working together to phase out inefficient lighting concurrent with manufacturers changing out their equipment to produce enough energy saving light bulbs to meet the global demand.

Bulbs greater than 100W have been phased out in the UK; retailers stopped selling them in January 2009. Scheduled next are the standard shaped, usually called A-shaped bulbs. 60W A-shaped bulbs were no longer available in retail as of January 2010. In January 2011, you will no longer be able to purchase 40W A-shaped or 60W golf ball-shaped and candle shaped bulbs.

Although the earliest CFLs were bulky and oddly shaped, advanced engineering has produced energy-efficient bulbs offering classic shapes with excellent lighting. You can now buy a wide variety of fittings, shapes, and sizes and thanks to the invention of ‘soft tone’ bulbs; you can enjoy a warm glow rather than a cold light.

Depending on the length of daily use, one energy efficient light bulb could save you on average £2.50 a year. With a life expectancy of 10 times longer, than a standard bulb, you could save an estimated £40 before that one new bulb needs to be replaced.

As you assess your home energy use, you’ll find that simple light changes not only save you money, but can be a very cost effective way to update, change the style of, or remodel your home. There are vast selections of lighting options to help you provide adequate ambient, task, or accent lighting both inside and outside of your home.

A popular choice for garden lighting and landscape lighting is the use of solar-powered garden lights to provide a well lit pathway or accent on plants and shrubs. Using solar-powered lights helps eliminate the need for complicated outdoor electrical wiring. Also, it provides a cheap way to light the area. You’ll also find a number of low-energy floodlights to help provide added security for your home.

One of my favorite enhancements not only saved me money but provided the much needed task lighting I was looking for. Consider the use of kitchen cabinet lights which can be placed inside a much used cabinet or for task lighting underneath the cabinet to light your countertop. In most cases, this completely eliminates the need to turn the kitchen ceiling downlights on.

There are many ways you can improve on your home’s energy efficiency. Do you part now to help make your home more energy efficient, replace your standard light bulbs with energy efficient ones and begin saving today….and don’t be kept in the dark.

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