More light with less electricity costs

With the onset of winter and entering the period with the shortest days and longest nights of the year, it is necessary to use artificial lighting for a longer time in our homes or workplaces. This inevitably generates electricity costs, although they are incomparable to those of heating or cooling. With the help of modern technologies and efficient ways of consumption, every household can achieve better illumination of the home with less electricity costs.

Traditionally, ENERGO-PRO uses energy-saving lighting in its offices and customer centers in the country. The company offers to your attention a few practical tips on how to use the luminaires efficiently and at the same time optimize your electricity bills:

- Provide maximum access to daylight in the rooms by keeping the windows clean and the blinds and curtains pulled;

- From the point of view of the interior, walls and ceilings in light tones are preferable, since the degree of light reflection is much higher;

- Always turn off the lights when leaving the room for more than 10 minutes;

- For lighting in transitional rooms, choose one with built-in detectors that turn it on when moving;

- The location and power of the lighting fixtures match the size and function of the respective part of the home;

- Adjust the degree of illumination in the rooms according to your needs - use low diffused lighting while watching TV, for example, and directional type of lighting when working at a desk;

- Use energy-saving bulbs with which you achieve the same and better illumination of the rooms with significantly less electricity consumption. So, for example, an energy-saving lamp with a power of 20 W delivers the same amount of light as an incandescent lamp with a power of 100 W.

Incandescent bulbs are the most massive in Bulgaria, but one of them converts more than 90 percent of the electricity consumed into heat and only the rest into light, part of which is even invisible to human vision. A simple calculation shows that if a 100-watt light bulb is turned on for 8 hours a day, it will consume 24 kilowatt hours per month.

Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL; also called “fluorescent”) provide the same amount of light as regular bulbs, but use a quarter of the energy. One 13-watt CFL lamp shines with the power of a 60-watt ordinary one and lasts about 10 thousand hours, which is at least 10 times more.

A newer generation are LED bulbs (LED), which do not contain harmful metals such as mercury, are twice as economical as CFL lamps and up to 5 times longer lasting. When purchasing energy-saving and LED bulbs, it is important to take into account the lumen designation on the package: 450 lumens corresponds to 40 watts in a conventional light bulb, 800 lumens = 60 watts, 1100 = 75, and 1600 = 100 watts.

With reasonable and practical consumption and with minimal change of habits, we can optimize our electricity costs and at the same time keep the lighting in the home cozy.