Lighting is the second biggest use of energy

According to a study commissioned by the office of the Mayor of London in 2006 lighting accounted for 26% of emissions from the London area comercial and public sectors. A mind boggling statistic that is not widely known.

In the UK lighting consumes around a whopping 58,000 GWh a year.

It is estimated that less than 40% of comercial buildings have lighting controls and of those a significant number do not provide savings due to either being badly specified or installed and dare I say badly designed. The best example of this is to look at London Docklands of a night or indeed any city centre in the world. Lights are either not switched off, won't switch off or most commonly a reluctance to switch them off in fear of not being able to switch them back on.

The answer is to use the right lighting controls for the application and not to automatically use the cheapest, the most complicated or even the same as last time.

In the UK if all the comercial lights were controlled properly 30,000 GWh could be saved. Imagine that figure in larger countries like the USA.