Lighting control provides one of the best opportunities for Return On Investment

 Lighting Control and the Green Deal 

According to a study commissioned by the office of the Mayor of London in 2006 lighting accounted for 26% of emissions from the commercial and public sectors in the London area. A mind boggling statistic that is not widely known resulting in the UK consuming around a whopping 58,000 GWh a year.

 

It is estimated that less than 40% of commercial buildings have lighting controls and of those a significant number do not provide savings due to either being badly specified or installed or even badly designed. The best example of this is to look at any city centre of a night. This example was taken at midnight and the building was unoccupied. Not only are they consuming vast amounts of power unnecessarily but the rate of maintenance will also be greatly accelerated. Automatic lighting controls would save a minimum of 50% providing a return on investment of less than three years

 

The potential savings from proper control of commercial and public sector lights is around 30,000 GWh. With a figure of this size it is easy to see that it is one of the biggest opportunities to save power and emissions are on a large scale and sits perfectly within the Green Deal Initiative.

Consider the rule ‘Right Light, Right Place, Right Time’.  Considerations to natural light, occupancy and frequency of occupancy should be used. No occupation should mean no light. Natural light should mean regulated light (just like a thermostat on a heater), both fluorescent and LED lights are dimmable and occasional occupancy should utilise timers that dim before switching off such as corridor, WC’s etc.

Introduce lighting controls, even if you select LED lights. Just because they save 50% over fluorescent doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be controlled efficiently, the percentage savings are still the same!

The Chartered institute of Building Service Engineers (CIBSE) state quite clearly that lighting controls should have a minimum service life of 15 years. This is easily achievable as Lighting Controls have come a long way over the last few years reducing costs, extending operating life and increasing the Return on Investment. The new generation of ‘Intelligent Marshalling Boxes’ offer the best in value providing advanced energy saving functions. Controlling lights and achieving significant energy savings no longer needs to be complicated requiring specialist engineers to commission and maintain.

In the UK if all the commercial lights were controlled properly 30,000 GWh could be saved. It’s good to see Lighting control is going to be included in the Green Deal.

Below shows a typical graph of the power savings dimming a T5 florescent light. It is easy to see that dimming by 10% will reduce the energy by 25%.

Written by Alex Carter of Durable Technologies who has over 30 years practical experience in the lighting industry both installing and maintaining light control technologies  for domestic and commercial sectors

 

 

 

 

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