Lighting

The facts:

• In most homes, lighting accounts for around 20% of the electricity bill.
• UK households spend around £2.3 billion every year on electricity to power their lighting.

The solutions:

• Energy saving light bulbs use up to 80 per cent less electricity than standard bulbs and last around ten times as long.
• Depending on how long your lights are in use every day, an energy saving light bulb can save you around £2.50 per year on average or around £6 for brighter bulbs or those used for more than a few hours a day.
• By replacing all the remaining traditional bulbs in your home with energy saving light bulbs you could save around £37 a year from your energy bill and 135kg of CO₂. Over the lifetime of all the bulbs this could add up to £590 saved on energy bills and in bulb costs and 3 tonnes of CO₂.

The facts:

• If every UK household installed just one extra energy saving light bulb (or `Compact Fluorescent Light bulb¿) in their house, the CO₂ saved would be equivalent to taking 70,000 cars off the roads.
• If everyone in the UK switched all their remaining traditional inefficient light bulbs to energy saving light bulbs, the electricity saved in just one year would run the UK¿s street lighting for four and a half years, or provide electricity for every house in London for nine months.