ON March 29, at 8pm, Suva will join more than 20 countries around the globe to commemorate Earth Hour by switching off its lights for one hour.
The idea was first proposed by the World Wildlife Fund and the first event was held in Sydney on March 31, last year.
Earth Hour is essentially an awareness initiative.
Its main purpose is to create a consciousness about global warming and to educate ordinary folks on how they can do their bit in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the root cause of climate change.
Worldwide lighting consumes about 2016 terra watt hours of electricity annually.
That is roughly the equivalent to the output of 3000 Monasavu hydropower stations.
This energy is produced mainly using fossil fuel and results in the emission of 1900 metric tones of carbon dioxide (CO2) which is three times the emission generated by the aviation sector globally.
The rapid development in emerging economies, particularly in Asia and the Pacific would see them accounting for almost half the global lighting demand and therefore further increase their share in world greenhouse gas emissions.
Efforts are underway globally to move toward more efficient ways of providing light.
The incandescent bulb has served us well for more than 100 years but it is one of the most inefficient devices almost 98 per cent of the power consumed by the bulbs is dissipated as heat and only 2 per cent is useful as visible light.
This is sheer wastage of precious energy.
Help is, however, on the way as there are now a number of more efficient lighting options available in the market.
These include tri-phosphor tube lights, compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and LEDs, among others.
At right is the amount of light produced for each watt of power consumed (luminous efficacy) of some of the lamps.
Replacing your 60-watt incandescent bulb with similar light level producing 13-watt CFL will save 282 watt hour/day if used for six hours.
If four bulbs are replaced you would be saving 412 kwh (units) of electricity annually, reducing your electricity bill by approximately $100.
Since about 20 per cent of electricity is wasted during transmission and distribution you would help your utility save 515 kwh/year.
If this is repeated in 1000 households, 515 mwh/year can be added to a country's electric generation capacity.
This is roughly equivalent to the electricity produced by 25 (98kVA) diesel generators in rural Fiji.
Besides saving money by cutting down consumption and helping the country produce more electricity, you are also joining a worldwide effort in saving the environment through energy conservation.
The replacement of 25 diesel generators in the above scenario would result in annual reduction of greenhouse gases by 500kg of CO2.
While the initial cost of a CFL is three-to-four times that of an incandescent bulb, it lasts 10 times longer.
In Fiji, there are special offers (buy one get one free) on CFLs and FEA/DOE has been doing a good job promoting them.
Some countries such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom already have laws in place to ban the sale of incandescent bulbs within the next three years and the day is not very far when these inefficient lamps will be found as museum artifacts.
At the height of the energy crisis in 1977, Jimmy Carter, the former US president said: "Conservation is the cheapest, quickest and most practical source of energy." This rings true even today in the face of increasing fuel costs and growing environment concerns. Now, it is up to us that the awareness created by Earth Hour lingers on and that we make an active effort to be energy-smart and proactive on a regular basis.
Let us make use of this event as a starting point to make a commitment to reduce our energy consumption.
But don't let energy conservation stop just at changing a light bulb or switching it off.
Make an effort to look for efficient alternatives and power-saving opportunities in daily life.
