Saving energy by lighting your office effectively
By optimising daylight, you can create a more comfortable working environment and reduce your electricity bills for lighting.
Below are some Greener Now tips on how to save energy by improving the lighting in your office.
- Plan your office layout to make the best use of natural and artificial lighting.
- Switch off lights when they are not needed.
- Label light switches to clearly identify the lights they control.
- Clean light fittings regularly. This will increase the brightness of your lighting and could mean you need to turn on fewer lights.
- Fit adjustable vertical blinds, which can be used to limit glare whilst impacting little on daylight.
- Paint the walls and ceilings in light colours and keep them clean also helps.
- Maximise natural lighting by ensuring windows are clean and window ledges are not cluttered.
- Install modern slimline fluorescent tubes, these last much longer than ordinary bulbs and use less energy.
- If double fluorescent tubes have been fitted, check whether you can replace them with a single tube.
- Consider fitting presence detectors (Passive Infra Red detectors – PIRs) in areas that are not frequently used, such as photocopy rooms or toilets. The light will operate when someone enters the area and automatically switch off when there is no further movement.
Energy efficient light bulbs:
A good method of becoming more energy efficient is to replace standard lightbulbs with low energy CFL bubs. You should aim to remove as many standard light bulbs from your office as possible. Low energy compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs cost more to buy outright, but they use around 20% of the energy of standard bulbs and last around 8 times as long.
The payback period for installing low energy lighting is typically less than one year. You should especially aim to install low energy lighting in areas that have frequent occupancy or where lights are left on for long periods of time.
For more information on saving energy by going Greener Now in your office click on the link.
