Led by energy experts from UC Davis, facility managers from California's public colleges and universities will meet this month to learn how to reduce their lighting bills, which account for about one-fifth of overall campus energy costs.

Facility managers from the state of California's business office, the Department of General Services (motto: Building Green, Buying Green, Working Green) will join them.

The Campus Lighting Retrofit Forum is co-hosted by the California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis and by UC Irvine.

To save travel costs in a time of tight budgets, and to reduce environmental impacts, the forum with be held twice -- once in Northern California, at UC Davis on July 1, and once in Southern California, at UC Irvine on July 13. The content and format will be the same at both sites.

California Lighting Technology Center outreach manager Kelly Cunningham said the forum's objective is to demonstrate how the amount of energy used for lighting can be cut significantly -- sometimes in half -- through the use of energy-efficient fixtures and controls, "daylighting" and occupancy sensors that turn off lights when rooms are empty.

The forum is free to attendees, thanks to sponsorship by the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program.