"Tis better to change a single light bulb than
to curse your electric bill!"
The incandescent light has not evolved much since Edison invented it in 1879. If you have mostly incandescent lamps in your business or home, there are multiple reasons why you should consider changing them:
o They have a relatively short life (usually under 1,000 hours);
o They are extremely inefficient (converting only about 5% of the energy consumed to visible light); and
o They give of a great amount of heat that must be removed from a building during cooling season.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated that if each household in the United States replaced one incandescent with one compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) we could save more than $600 million in energy costs and 9 billon pounds of greenhouse gases a year. This would be equivalent to taking 800,000 cars off the road! As a result of their low energy efficiency, most incandescent lamps will be phased out starting with the 100-watt lamp in 2012 with other wattages being eliminated in subsequent years.
The most likely current replacement for the incandescent is the compact fluorescent or CFL. These lamps are typically four times as efficient in generating useable light as incandescents, meaning that a 14-watt CFL can replace a 60-watt incandescent. In addition the life expectancy of a CFL is 10-12 times that of an incandescent. Here is a comparison of the costs of purchasing and operating equivalent lights for 9,000 hours:
Incandescent
6 lamps (1,500 hrs. life each) @ $0.47 = $ 2.82
9,000 hours x 60 watts x $0.16/kwh = 97.92
Total Cost $ 100.74
CFL
1 lamp (9,000+ hrs. life) @ $1.47 = $ 1.47
9,000 hours x 14 watts x $0.16 = 20.16
Total Cost $ 21.63
The savings over the life of the lamps is nearly $80.00 and this cost does not include any savings from only changing one lamp, nor does it include any savings from reduced air conditioning costs.
Today's CFLs start up rapidly, have little to no "flicker", and produce light that is nearly indistinguishable from that of incandescents. These lights now come in a variety of shapes and sizes, even as three-way lamps. Nearly every light in my house is a CLF and friends who tell me that they hate fluorescent lights don't even know that mine are fluorescents. Incidentally, I installed most of these lights when I rewired my antique home in 2001 and this past year I finally had to replace four lights! My electric bill in my 2,400 square foot home/office averages less than $60.00 a month!
There are "issues" with CLFs: if you want to dim them they require special (more expensive) dimmers, they may not fit all fixtures; and they contain a small amount of mercury (a toxic metal) so they may have to be recycled rather than thrown out when they are burned out. The EPA states that the amount of mercury contained in each lamp is about 1/3 as much as would be released into the environment if coal was burned to produce the electricity to operate the 60-watt lamps that the CFL replaces.
Since lighting accounts for about 13% of the energy use in the typical restaurant, there is a great opportunity to reduce energy use and cost by converting to CFLs.
Here are some other ways to save significant amounts of the energy used for lighting without spending a lot of money:
ˇ Make sure that your lighting fixtures are cleaned at least twice a year - at the beginning of the season for seasonal businesses. Dirty fixtures trap light, requiring higher wattage lights to get the same amount of usable light. (Keeping walls and ceilings clean and using bright colors will also reduce the amount of light needed as dirt and dark colors trap light.)
ˇ Use natural daylight whenever possible - don't turn on all the lights in a room if you don't need them. Incidentally, for those of you with retail sales areas, it has been shown that introducing natural light into retail stores actually increases the per foot sales by up to 40%!
ˇ Consider installing motion detectors in spaces that are used infrequently or where people are in and out of them. Motion detectors generally cost between $20-50 and can be installed by you or your maintenance person.
ˇ Consider installing timers or light sensors for exterior lights so that they are not on when not needed.
The next generation of even more efficient light sources are Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). LEDs are approximately 10 times more efficient in generating light than incandescents, meaning even lower wattages and even greater life expectancies. As this technology is relatively new there are still issues with the color of the light, the types of fixtures that the lamps can fit into, and cost. A screw-in LED to replace a 60-watt incandescent will cost in the neighborhood of $30.00. At the present time, I can only recommend them for specialized applications, but that will probably change in the next few years.
We often have small appliances that we leave on all the time, even when not in use or needed. Energy experts refer to these items as "vampire" loads because they often suck up energy at night. While you may need to keep your POS on at all times, it may be possible to install a simple surge protector with an "Off/On" switch in your office to turn off a computer, printers and other similar appliances.
[Note: Many newer pieces of food service equipment have been redesigned to heat rapidly (in 15 minutes of less) and don't have to be turned on hours in advance of use.]
