Save on lighting costs with task lighting
Sometimes, Sydneysiders and business owners are looking for ways to cut energy costs without spending money on retrofits, even if the retrofits make financial sense. In this case, you are best to look at opportunities for cutting the amount of time bulk lighting is turned on.
This is especially applicable in situations where a small part of a larger space is used for a long time, yet only requires lighting in the whole space for part of the time. Adjusting lighting to match the level of activity is called task lighting. Task lighting is an important piece of the energy efficiency puzzle.
Example
A large secure office is light by a network of twenty fluorescent tubes in a suspended ceiling. The ceiling and lamps belong to the landlord.
During the day, the office is fully staffed with 10 clerks, but at around 4pm many of the staff leave, and one or two managers stay back until 8pm. The business-as-usual case meant that even though two staff were in the office, the simple switches installed meant that all twenty lamps (36W each) stayed on the whole time (an additional 4 hours).
Solution: The accountant purchased a small desk lamp for the two desks (15W each lamp) occupied by the night owls. When staying back, and safe to do so, the late workers switched off the main lamps (saving 20 x 36W = 720W)
