Green Life Smart Life, a Rhode Island-based green building showcase home, today announced Lutron Electronics as the home's lighting control partner. Lutron, whose products save 9.2 billion kWh annually, will be showcasing its HomeWorks® total home lighting control system in the home.

The HomeWorks total home lighting control system provides unprecedented flexibility, power and versatility to home lighting and streamlines connections with other home systems, such as security, whole-house audio and energy monitoring systems. Lighting control is an integral factor in minimizing a home's energy consumption. By dimming an incandescent light by 15 percent, which is virtually unnoticeable to the human eye, homeowners can prolong the life of the bulb by four years and save 15 percent on electricity. The Green Life Smart Life Lutron lighting control system will be programmed to include a high-end trim of 85% for every connected light in the house.

Lutron was well-suited to this project particularly because of its leadership in compatibility and control of the newest and most energy-efficient light fixtures and lamp types. Control of LED-based lights is especially challenging because they are built quite differently from traditional light bulbs, and behave differently when dimmed or linked in groups. With 70 recessed LED lights in the project, specified because of their ENERGY STAR® certification and their dimmable control from Lutron, the project saves 7730 kWh over traditional 65 watt incandescent light bulbs and 791 kWh over today's 26 watt CFLs*.

The Lutron HomeWorks system not only helps homeowners reduce energy consumption by dimming the home's lights, but also enables the users to create lighting scenes for optimal performance. A lighting scene readies the home for a specific event, such as a "party", "movie time", and "all off". Activated by pressing designated buttons on the Lutron keypad, or through the home automation platform, the Lutron system will turn lights on or off automatically depending on the homeowner's preference, ensuring that only the essential lights are powered on. The system will also use the Lutron "Green" button, which reduces energy consumption with a single button press.

For the Green Life Smart Life project, Lutron's HomeWorks will be programmed to manage load shedding of high-energy appliances such as the refrigerator and will shut the unit down from 1AM to 4 AM daily. The system also features automatic controls from motion sensors, occupancy and vacancy sensors, magnetic door switches, and even a sensor buried below the driveway for security and exterior lighting control.

*Calculations based on 1000 hours of use