Lighting

LIGHTING RETROFITTING: LIGHTING A PATH TO NET-ZERO BUILDINGS

Miguel Aguado, Marketing & Technology Manager at Lutron Electronics

While technology and consumer behaviour continue to evolve at an ever-increasing speed, the UK built environment remains stuck in the past. According to the UK GBC, 80% of the buildings that we will be using in 2050 have already been built, making our building stock the oldest in the developed world.

These buildings contribute 40% of the UK’s total carbon footprint, half of which derives from the energy used in buildings. Concurrently, waste from construction, demolition and excavation represents a staggering 59% of total UK waste. These statistics, when considered together, add some much-needed clarity to the quest for net-zero by 2050. Clearly, the decarbonisation of our existing buildings must be the top priority.

Unintrusive, smart building technology represents one of the greatest win-win investments for governments, businesses and individuals. By embracing its benefits, we can see both cost savings and carbon reductions. Lighting, due to its ubiquity, cost saving ability, positive impact on productivity and wellbeing, as well as safety, must be the first port of call for retrofitting activities in the years to come.

LIGHTING THE WAY

While COVID-19 has changed the world, our priorities remain the same, if not more urgent, as all governments, businesses, and individuals come under pressure to become more efficient, sustainable and resilient.

As we collectively pull to build back better, the question fundamentally becomes; which area should we invest in first? Buildings represent the greatest opportunity for mass improvement, with smart lighting systems as the prime candidates to bring about dramatic and effective change.

Universality – Firstly, and perhaps most crucially, wherever there are buildings, there are lights. They are the most ubiquitous and intrinsic building technology, fundamental to their performance. Therefore, a single piece of legislative change could have a sweeping impact on the overall energy efficiency of our buildings. The universality of lighting must make it the clear first choice for action.

Efficiency – Over recent years, we have tangibly seen the impact of LED lighting. Indeed, in the journey to net zero, efficiency has been more effective than reducing carbon emissions. Energy efficient lighting installations can easily realise savings of more than 50% over legacy technology. However, the sensing and communication capabilities of lighting systems provides benefits that are far greater than the sum of its parts. Add presence detectors, daylight linking, timeclock events, and personal control and the impact can be upwards of an additional 60%, over the energy savings already provided by LED lighting.

Productivity - On average, in a commercial building, energy accounts for 1% of the total cost to the business, while the running of the building itself accounts for 9%. The remaining 90% is devoted to the people and the accumulated knowledge and skills that make a workforce productive. Lighting has a greater impact on employees than any other building technology, helping productivity and overall wellbeing.

Smart lighting control takes our lit environment a step further. Combining data from lighting systems with that from additional sources (including weather, time of year, etc.), they can unlock even greater benefits to building operations and provide a better setting for users. Through the collation of data, we are moving closer to the perfect lighting environment.

Safety - The use of automation, personal control, and data analytics can help realise not only further energy savings, but reduce the spread of disease which, as we have seen, can have a devastating snowball effect on the global economy.

Automation allows building occupants to avoid touching shared surfaces, such as light switches or blind controls. Occupancy data analytics can tell a facility manager which areas of the building are used, and how often over time, and be able to plan the distribution of workspaces. That data, in turn, can be shared with the climate control of the building and optimise its efficiency.

TAKING ACTION

The technology to bring about genuine change is available today. The maturity of wireless lighting technologies makes it possible to deploy smart systems in any environment – however, we are not yet seeing that reality.

The current UK regulations (Conservation of Fuel and Power: Part L) barely scratch the surface of what is needed and fail to capitalise on the technology available. In terms of efficiency alone, smart lighting systems represent an open goal - able to take energy savings to new levels, with the capability to be cost-effectively deployed in the UK’s current built environment. Add the productivity and safety benefits, and it simply can no longer be shunted down the list of priorities.

Change can only come from a clear, prescriptive regulatory framework that forces action. Part L must make capabilities, such as presence detection, daylight linking, and timeclock events, compulsory for all new constructions and during every piece of renovation work. Legislation must require the use of smart technologies in new and existing buildings, turbocharging the industry and providing the basis for a hyperefficient economy in the years to come.

Lumen requirement can only take us so far – explicit requirements for controls will bring short-term, long-term and universal benefits. Our European neighbours have led the way, launching the €1.8 trillion EU Renovation Wave project. It’s time the UK joined the party. www.lutron.com/Europe

LIGHTING

WHY POST-PANDEMIC WORKPLACES WILL REQUIRE SMART SOLUTIONS

Following the Government’s publication of a COVID roadmap to recovery many businesses are now turning their attention to the future of their workplaces and specifically their office versus remote working culture. A growing amount of research suggests that we will never see a pre-pandemic return to the office, so the pressure will certainly be on those who manage buildings to maximise the efficiency of their assets. Mark Willmott, smart lighting solutions specialist at Prime Light explains more:

There are a huge number of predictions out there around the future of remote working with some think tanks suggesting that anything up to 70% of the workforce will be working remotely by 2025. In reality, the likelihood is that rather than an all or nothing scenario businesses will actually be looking at a more hybrid solution and the BBC backs this up suggesting that 72% of knowledge workers will want a hybrid remote-office working culture once social distancing measures are eased. This will pose some real challenges for anyone responsible for office space as they will be called upon to balance this flexible hybrid approach with maximising the efficiency of their assets.

But with so much to consider where do you start? Well, with lighting accounting for anywhere between 20% and 35% of a business’s energy consumption, it’s certainly one area with the greatest returns when looking to increase efficiency. And whilst you may have already made some positive headway into this by installing LED lighting, it’s still thought that the introduction of controls, such as sensors, could further reduce energy consumption by 30-50%, equating to a staggering 24 million tonnes of CO2 a year in less electricity usage.

We all know the scenario, typically a person walks into an office or meeting space and if it’s dusk or a darkened area they turn the light on and quite likely leave it on when they leave the area. Post-pandemic this age-old challenge will still be an issue, but there will also be an added challenge of lower and inconsistent occupancy in offices, so intelligent lighting will become a must when considering energy efficiency in the running costs of buildings.

At an entry-level, the introduction of a basic sensor in a room can automatically turn the lights on and off depending on the occupancy – so already you are starting to gain efficiencies. This is a very simple and cost-effective starting point for anyone looking to increase the intelligence of a building. But what happens when you talking about a larger area, where you need a number of lights to stay on at the same time or you want to have more control over performance and efficiencies than simply an on or off function?

In these two instances, you need to think about the next level of smart lighting. For larger areas, you need to link sensors together and this has traditionally been achieved through wired programmable sensors, there are some great products on the market for this category. But newer technology now enables us to offer wireless solutions that are controlled by a Bluetooth app. These wireless systems are undoubtedly becoming more popular as they’re easy to fit and they also have the advantage of being controlled by an app that can not only provide you with greater control over your lighting scheme’s performance, but can also deliver additional benefits such as the automated testing and reporting of emergency lighting or, when linked to a building management system, control other functions such as air conditioning units – amplifying the efficiencies to be made.

Most of the newer wireless sensors on the market measure the level of ambient light in a room or part of a room, then depending on the parameters you’ve set, as long as it’s with an acceptable and safe range, will dim or turn the lights off accordingly. So for instance a light near a window turns off, whilst a light over the seating area in the centre of a building dims, we call this daylight harvesting. This ability to fully control the performance of a lighting scheme can have a significant impact on efficiencies with research suggesting that by dimming your lights by 50% of the time you can cut your electricity costs by 40% and make lamps last 20 times longer.

These wireless systems are ever-evolving and we will definitely see them being used even more intelligently in the future. For instance, there are already products on the market that will detect your bespoke personal lighting setting, so that when you sit a particular hot desk the system changes to reflect your preferences. Again this is a real win when we consider the likelihood of businesses operating this hybrid remoteoffice style of working where employees don’t have a fixed desk to call their own. The great thing about efficiencies from controls or smart lighting is that there’s always a solution and the return on investment of installation balances out quickly with the lower running costs. From the basic switching on/ off sensor to a fully automated system that can daylight harvest– they will all have an impact. These systems are always going to be best installed as part of a new lighting scheme but products are available that enable you to retrofit a solution to gain the efficiencies – these can either be standalone solutions, such as the on/ off sensor, a networked solution where sensors are joined up or a bespoke hybrid solution where new technology can be installed in line with older technology – it’s really dependent on budget. So there’s no one size fits all, it’s really about understanding the needs of a project and then looking across a portfolio of products to find the best fit solution for client needs. With almost 30 years in the business, Prime Light prides itself on the quality of its expertise, its strong product range and the quality of its products. Over the past 12 months, they have bolstered their offering in particular areas of growth, including smart lighting solutions and that’s why I chose to join the company in autumn last year. We’re always more than happy to talk through potential solutions, so I’d urge you to get in touch if you would like to find out more.

If you have a smart lighting project or query and would like to discuss your options, please don’t hesitate to visit https://www.primelight.co.uk/products/ sensors-lighting-control.html or email Mark at mw@primelight.co.uk