Sky Tower shows energy-saving colours

The new lights, reflected in a Federal St window, can display an infinite colour range. Photo / Greg Bowker

They're a little more glamorous than the energy-efficient lightbulb the Government wanted you to put in your kitchen.

But new, brighter lights on Auckland's tallest building promise to deliver a similar energy-saving benefit.

The lightbulbs used to light up the Sky Tower in themed colours for special events have been replaced by 26 electronic lights on seven levels spaced around the tower.

The new lights - which can be changed at the press of a button to display a theoretically infinite array of colours - will use about a third of the electricity the old lights used.

Despite the energy saving, Sky Tower owner SkyCity expects them to be brighter than the old lights.

They can be instantly programmed by a laptop computer to display different colour patterns - whereas the coloured filters used on the old lights had to be hand-changed over a period of 16 hours.

SkyCity began showing off the new colours with a rainbow-coloured display on Friday night, followed by a white and blue theme on Saturday to commemorate 50 years since the Auckland Harbour Bridge was built.

SkyCity said the old lights used 80kW of power and the new system would use 33kW, a saving of just under 60 per cent - slightly less than the up to 80 per cent the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority estimates homeowners can save by switching their much-smaller home lightbulbs for energy-efficient models.