Nearly 10 percent of the average home’s electricity costs can be controlled with the flip of a switch—a light switch—notes EPA. So how can you light the house more efficiently?

A good solution: Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) use about two-thirds less energy and last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs. CFLs have improved tremendously since first introduced; they have become smaller, cheaper, brighter, and offer improved color quality.

Power$mart Tips : Put the Power in Your Hands

• Don’t like coming home to a dark house? Instead of leaving lights on, put timers on a few of the lights in your home, or install motion detectors on exterior flood lights to improve your home security. After you get inside, the sensor will “remember” to turn the lights off.
• Replace all light fixtures and bulbs that operate four or more hours a day with compact fluorescent bulbs to save money and energy. Use lumens—the amount of light produced—to compare lights. For example, a 23-watt fluorescent bulb produces about the same number of lumens as a 75-watt incandescent. Your investment will generally pay for itself in a couple of years.
• Let “Mother Nature” light your home. Sunlight is brighter than a multitude of light bulbs, and it’s free.
• Turn off all lights not in use to save money and energy.

FACT
If every U.S. household replaced just one traditional light with an ENERGY STAR® qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light 7 million homes, save $600 million in utility bills, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing 1 million cars from the road for a year, EPA estimates.