Manage your lighting

Most of us are creatures of habit when it comes to lighting our homes or offices. We tend to flip on the same lights no matter what we are doing. In some cases, you have no control over what kind of lighting options are available. However, a little bit of awareness when you do have control could lead to less electricity used on lighting. Sometimes you need lots of bright light for the task you are doing, and you need to light the room appropriately. Other times, less light is needed for the task, and you might be able to choose lighting that fits that task. For example, at night when you are preparing to go to bed, perhaps you can turn on a small lamp (perhaps with an LED lightbulb) in the bedroom instead of turning on the brighter overhead light that may have two or even three lightbulbs. Other ideas:​

• If you have a small light turned on in a room and then later turn on brighter lights, remember to turn off the small light. It’s probably no longer contributing to the overall light intensity but is still using electricity.
• Remember to adjust the lights that are turned on based on your activity. It’s easy to turn on a lot of lights and leave them on after some of them are no longer needed.
• When you enter a room that has multiple options for lighting, think about which light is the most appropriate for what you will be doing in the room.
• Using natural light from windows is always good unless the energy use to heat or cool the house because of weather or sun position is higher than the energy used by the lightbulb.  Of course, sometimes you just want to see the outdoors, and then you will want to choose which curtains are open to maximize your view of the outdoors while minimizing the energy impacts on the heating or cooling system for your house.