Lighting

Learn ways to reduce the energy used by your lighting--both indoors and outdoors.

• Turn off incandescent lights when leaving a room. This is particularly important in summer months, because lights produce heat.
• Leave fluorescent lights on when you leave the room, unless you’ll be gone 15 minutes or longer. Fluorescent lights cost more to turn on and off than they do to run. Turning them on and off wears out the tube faster.
• For exterior flood lighting, we recommend lights activated with motion sensors

Lighting can account for as much as 20% of your home’s total energy usage. It makes sense to ensure that you’re using the most energy-efficient lighting available. Reliant Energy’s Power Pact urges Texans to make a simple switch from incandescent bulbs to more energy efficient Compact fluorescent lights.

Join Reliant Energy's Power Pact
We're urging Texans to make a simple switch from incandescent bulbs to more energy efficient compact fluorescent lights. And so far, we've succeeded -- we're No. 1 in Texas for the second consecutive year and eighth in the nation in driving energy efficiency awareness under the 2008 ENERGY STAR^® Change a Light, Change the World campaign.
Take the pledge

About Compact Fluorescents
Compact fluorescent light bulbs have revolutionized energy efficiency and interior lighting. While the up-front cost of compact fluorescent bulbs is a bit higher, over the long haul you'll save money. Compact fluorescent bulbs use about 1/4 as much electricity as incandescent bulbs and last up to 9 years longer.

A 15-watt compact fluorescent bulb can replace a 60-watt incandescent light. The lower wattage fluorescent will not only save money and energy, but will also provide almost the same amount of light. Compact fluorescent lights emit hardly any heat compared to incandescent lighting.

More compact fluorescent facts:

• A standard incandescent light bulb uses only 10 percent of the electricity it consumes to produce light. The other 90 percent is wasted heat.
• Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) save an average of $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb and use up to 75 percent less energy than a conventional bulb.
• CFLs are four times more efficient than regular light bulbs and last nine to 13 times as long. The life of a CFL is up to 10,000 hours per bulb, compared with less than 1,000 for an incandescent bulb.
• If every one of the 110 million American households replaced just one incandescent bulb with a CFL, the energy savings would power a city of 2.5 million people--about the size of the Houston metropolitan area.
• If every U.S. household switched just five most frequently used lighting fixtures from incandescent bulbs to CFLs, $6.5 billion could be saved collectively every year by Americans and greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from more than 8 million cars could be reduced.

A relatively easy way to save electricity in your home is by installing landscape lighting powered by the sun.

Benefits:

• Save money: solar powered lights don’t draw power from your home.
• Easy placement: no need for an outdoor outlet on the front of your house.
• Easy installation: no need to dig to bury wires.

Operation:

Solar landscape lights use a small solar, or photovoltaic (PV), cell to charge a battery integrated into the light fixture. After being charged all day by the sun, the battery then provides the electricity to illuminate the solar landscape lights after nightfall. Because each solar landscape light has its own battery, there is no need to run wires.

Outdoor solar lighting systems will work in most areas that get lots of sunshine. Consider the placement of your lights to be sure they will get adequate sun during the day. There are some models that have sunlight collectors separate from the light source. For this type, just be sure the collector is well placed.

Before you buy an outdoor solar lighting system, check with the manufacturer to see if replacement bulbs or batteries are available. Some units do not provide replacement options.

For more information on solar lighting systems, visit the Department of Energy’s Energy Savers.