This section identifies major lighting control strategies, organized by whether they are manual or automatic. Popular manual control strategies include manual dimming and bilevel switching, which can generate energy savings while providing users control over their lighting conditions, which may increase user satisfaction. Popular automatic control strategies include occupancy sensing and scheduling—the most popular as automatic shutoff is required by most commercial building energy codes—and daylight harvesting, load shedding, adaptive compensation and lumen maintenance dimming.

Manual Control
Most energy-saving lighting controls use logic-based intelligence to automatically respond to various inputs, such as a time event or target threshold, by reducing light output or switching loads OFF. However, two manual control strategies have proven themselves as cost-effective control strategies: manual dimming and bilevel or multilevel switching.
More »

Automatic Control
Automatic lighting control should deliver reliable energy savings with minimal occupant involvement. In fact, the most successful automatic control strategies are often those in which automatic control effects are virtually imperceptible to users; the alternative, unfortunately, is likely to be occupant complaints and possibly disabling of the controls.
More »