lighting
Fluorescent Lights: More commonly known as the 'tube lights'. These are longer lasting than incandescent and consume less electricity.
Compact Fluorescent Lighting (CFL): commonly known as 'energy savers'. These consume much less power compared to both fluorescent and incandescent lights, and they last up to 6 times longer than incandescent bulbs.
This table shows how you can replace the existing incandescent bulbs with the CFLs:
Incandescent | 40W | 60W | 75W | 100W |
Compact Fluorescent | 8W | 11W |
Through these savings, you will recover the cost of buying the CFL in about 3 - 4 months.
Energy Efficiency Measures
Do not leave the lights on unnecessarily. If the room is unoccupied and the light does not need to be on, then switch it off.
Try to use task lighting if possible. This is where instead of lighting the entire area, you only light up the specific working area. For example, lighting up your desk only when studying.
The common cheap fluorescent light fittings have magnetic ballasts, which generate a lot of heat, cause the flickering and the annoying sound you hear when the light gets a bit old. Use fluorescent fittings with electronic ballasts, which will consume less electricity, remove the flicker and noise, emit less heat, and last longer.
Replace the normal tubes in fluorescent fittings with Triphosphor tubes. These last longer, emit 20-40% more light than standard tubes and have a much higher Colour Rendering Index (CRI).
Triphosphor tubes can be used for delamping, whereby, 2 standard fluorescent tubes can be replaced by 1 triphosphor fluorescent tube.
