Energy Savings Tips: Outside Lighting

Energy Savings Tips: Outside Lighting

Here are ways to save energy on outside lighting (sorry, petioning your city for a new street light by your driveway doesn't count). These money-saving ideas can help you lower your energy bill by reducing energy consumption in your house or apartment.

You can also help to reduce the demand of electricity at peak electrical demand times - 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. These energy saving tips below may help cut down on the amount of energy you use and trim your household energy costs, while lowering peak demand on your electricity utility company.

Outside Lighting
San Diego Gas & Electric reports that lighting can account for about 12% of your monthly bill (9% for all-electric homes). If each household in San Diego replaced four 100-watt incandescent lights with equivalent 27 -watt CFLs, 400,000,000 kilowatt-hours would be saved each year. Enough to power over 70,000 homes for a year.

Saving energy in lighting costs can be as easy as replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), which use 75% less energy and last up to ten times longer. Each year, the United States throws away 1.741 billion incandescent bulbs-enough to fill two football stadiums. With each CFL, you'll throw away nine less bulbs.

* Use low-voltage lighting for the outdoors If you're planning to light your landscaping, install low-voltage lighting wherever possible. A string of six low-voltage lights uses about 108 watts, compared to a single 150-watt flood light.
* Use photocells. Photocells automatically turn on your lights when the sun goes down. Then, when the sun rises, the photocell turns the lights off. They're great for outdoor or security lighting.
* When leaving your home each day, turn off all unnecessary lights.
* Replace old light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). They can reduce lighting costs by up to 75% and they last up to eight times longer.