At a kickoff for the "Lights OUT LA" event in downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke and City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel said they hope the public awareness program will have lasting effects.

"My hope is that the message behind Lights Out LA will have a long-lasting impact," Burke said.

Turning off the lights for an hour could save 15 percent of the energy that would be normally consumed on that day, Burke said.

Non-essential lights will be turned off Saturday at hundreds of buildings throughout the county, including City Hall, the County Hall of Administration, the Music Center and the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

Robert Rozanski, acting general manager for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said that if all 1.4 million Department of Power and Water customers turn off their lights for an hour, enough energy could be saved to power 2,500 homes for an entire year.

"I'm looking forward to a nice candle-lit dinner on Saturday night," Burke said.

The Lights Out event initially took place in Sydney, Australia, in March. A total of 2.2 million people turned off their lights, reducing the country's electricity use by 10 percent.

The conservation effort also reduced carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by an estimated 25 tons, which is equivalent of taking almost 49,000 cars off the road for an hour.

Residents in San Francisco and Long Beach are also expected to turn out their lights on Saturday, and public power service, Southern California Edison (SCE), is also urging its customers to turn off one household light bulb for the hour.

"The Lights-Out Los Angeles campaign complements Southern California Edison's partnership with ENERGY STAR's Change a Light, Change the World campaign, which encourages customers to change at least one regular light bulb for an ENERGY STAR-qualified compact fluorescent light bulb," said Lynda Ziegler, senior vice president of the customer services business unit.

"We're asking customers to turn off one incandescent light bulb Saturday evening, and when turning it back on, replace it with a compact fluorescent light bulb," she said. "Taking this simple step will help protect the environment and contributes to issues surrounding climate change."

State officials believe that if every California household replaced five incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions at levels equivalent to taking 400,000 cars off the road.

SCE is encouraging people to switch off only non-essential lighting such as lights in houses and office buildings. It is not asking to turn off streetlights or any power necessary to keeping communities and its residents safe.

SCE is helping customers switch to fluorescent lights by reducing the price of such light bulbs at the retail level. The company provides a rebate to manufacturers and major retailers who pass along the discount to customers by reducing the retail price by the amount of the rebate -- from one to 2.50 dollars per bulb.

In the past year alone, nearly 9 million of the compact fluorescent bulbs have been distributed through SCE's retail program, resulting in energy savings of about 330 million kilowatt- hours.