Abstract
In 2019, South Africa reached its all-time high load shedding level of six hours in history due to the strain on the electricity grid. In 2020, the restrictions imposed by the government to curb the spread of COVID-19 led to approximately 3 million South Africans losing their jobs hence, lacked resources to meet up with their utility bills. Therefore, a reduction in energy expenditure would ease the pressure of the pandemic on consumers. In this work, energy consumption was minimized through an automatically controlled switch in response to environmental conditions. Hence, the Smart Energy Efficient Lighting System (SEELS) for smart buildings presented in this paper was found to be effective for the efficient use of energy by lighting sources in homes, offices and public spaces. Therefore leading to reduced energy consumption, energy expenditure and strain on the national electricity grid.