What do we mean by Energy Efficient and Energy Saving Lighting?

Energy Efficiency is all about getting the amount of light you want for less electricity used, while energy saving can just mean using less electricity as a result of having less light. You can save a lot of electricity by sitting in the dark (and cold), but it's not an ideal solution.

Energy saving is quite easy, as we often have lights on when we don't need them, or have them brighter than they need to be. Turning lights off and dimming lights to a comfortable level both save energy. FlexiDim™ can help with both of these simple strategies by making dimming easy and convenient and by having presence detection in certain rooms or using timers, so that lights turn off automatically when the room is not in use.

Making lighting energy efficient involves choosing lights that produce more light for the same amount of electricity, or that use less electricity for the same amount of light emitted. Different types of lighting, such as traditional bulbs, halogen lamps, fluorescent and LED all generate light with different degrees of efficiency - but they do so in different ways and with different effects, which may not always be as pleasing to the eye in every application.

• You'll save more energy and do more good for the environment by improving efficiency in a brightly lit area, such as a kitchen, than replacing a few bulbs in table lamps. Bright lights that are on for long periods are also good candidates for savings. Attacking the lighting that is costing you the most to operate yields the best savings.



• Balance energy saving against the effect that the lighting is designed to create. Remember, you can save a lot of energy with a single compact fluorescent lamp in the middle of the room but is it something you can live with? You have to decide on the extent of your savings.



• Split lighting circuits to add variety to the moods that you can create within a room. Never mix dimmable and non-dimmable lights on the same circuit.



• Buy good quality lamps from reputable manufacturers. Light output, efficiency, light quality and life vary enormously even between lamps that appear to be the same type.



• Before parting with money, try and see the lamp working (in a dim area) alongside the lamp you are replacing. LED based lamps, especially, have some very dubious claims made about equivalence with traditional lamps. The basic measure of light output is the Lumen. The more Lumens, the brighter the light. A regular 20W halogen lamp produces 320 Lumens over a broad area; if the new lamp is not producing 320 lumens it's not producing as much light.

What about LED ?