Lighting Journal April 2021 by The ILP

Professional best practice from the Institution of Lighting Professionals

April 2021

ALL THE PEOPLE How lighting has given a central London park a whole new visual identity LINKING LIGHT AND LANDSCAPE Unpicking the links between landscape and lighting professionals ‘CE’ THE DIFFERENCE What Brexit means for the CE mark, and the British alternative

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Contents

06 ALL THE PEOPLE

After years of decline into an overgrown, badly lit and unwelcoming space at night, Whitfield Gardens in central London has been given a new vibrant visual identity. And lighting has been at the heart of its regeneration, as Melissa Byers explains

LIGHT AND 10 LINKING LANDSCAPE

Lighting professionals have a critical role to play in helping planners and others to understand and assess the links between light and landscape, an ILP webinar led by landscape architect Karl Jones heard recently

16 BED-TIME READING

The ILP has linked up with the International Nighttime Design Initiative to launch a new resource for ILP members, the ‘Write, Light, Night’ booklist designed to raise awareness of books to help lighting professionals think about and reflect on night-time design. A launch event also delved into our changing perceptions of night, shade and dark

CITY SMART

Started in 2018, a smart city project for the City of London is now finished and, as Giles Radford outlines, aims to provide a flexible, interoperable communications infrastructure that will help to reduce pollution and energy consumption and manage traffic and transport systems more effectively

i‘CE’ THE 28 DIFFERENCE

Brexit and the UK’s departure from the European Union mean significant changes to the use and application of the CE mark as well as energy efficiency labelling. But the good news is it’s not happening all at once, writes Allan Howard

30 MINE CRAFT

Mining is one of the most challenging industrial environments in the world, and lighting is an absolutely critical component in keeping workers safe, facilities running smoothly and product flowing. Simone Rossi outlines how choosing, specifying, installing and maintaining lighting in this context is anything but straightforward ARCDOT™

46 STORY-TELLING, BRILLIANTLY

34 DISTILLING YOUR 34SOLUTION

When we think of ‘Ex lighting’, or explosion-proof lighting, we might imagine it being for an offshore oil rig or petrochemical site. But a distillery can be an equally hazardous environment, making it imperative to be specifying and considering the right lighting solutions. Emily Faulkner reports

GETTING FIT FOR 40 THE FUTURE

What should have been a relatively straightforward LED upgrade of a leisure centre in Wales proved more complicated because of, you’ve guessed it, the country being plunged into lockdown last year. But the results nevertheless herald a (hopefully) more positive future all round, as Liz Hudson explains ARCPIX II™

After Covid-19 put paid to 2020’s ‘How to be brilliant’, the ILP’s informal and friendly series of talks has returned in a new digital format for 2021, with David Gilbey the first speaker

SERVICE 50 xECONOMY?

Lighting has come a long way in terms of recycling and reuse, but there is still much that needs to improve across all electrical industries. Lighting as a service and product leasing schemes may all, for example, need to become more commonplace in the future, write Bryony Light and Alex Brothwood

‘PERSO’ AND 52 xPERSEVERENCE

INDO Lighting’s innovative ‘PeRSo’ hood respirator, developed for NHS workers at the height of the pandemic last year, has now gained wider regulatory approval, allowing it to be used in NHS trusts around the country and even internationally

p COVER PICTURE

Whitfield Gardens in central London. A new regeneration project, with a lighting scheme by Michael Grubb Studio, has transformed this vital urban and community sanctuary. Turn to page six for the full story

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Editor’s letter

Volume 86 No 4 April 2021 President Anthony Smith IEng FILP Chief Executive Tracey White Editor Nic Paton BA (Hons) MA Email: nic@cormorantmedia.co.uk

Lighting Journal’s content is chosen and evaluated by volunteers on our reader panel, peer review group and a small representative group which holds focus meetings responsible for the strategic direction of the publication. If you would like to volunteer to be involved, please contact the editor. We also welcome reader letters to the editor. Design Tolu Akinyemi B.Tech MSc Email: tolu@matrixprint.com

Advertising Manager Andy Etherton Email: andy@matrixprint.com Published by Matrix Print Consultants Ltd on behalf of Institution of Lighting Professionals Regent House, Regent Place, Rugby CV21 2PN Telephone: 01788 576492 E-mail: info@theilp.org.uk Website: www.theilp.org.uk Produced by Matrix Print Consultants Ltd Unit C,Northfield Point, Cunliffe Drive, Kettering, Northants NN16 9QJ Tel: 01536 527297 Email: gary@matrixprint.com Website: www.matrixprint.com

robably like many people who either live in or visit London regularly, I’ve over time perfected the art of walking the capital’s streets with a purposeful stride that says ‘yes, I definitely know where I’m going’ (even if that’s not always the case). While this may have the benefit of getting me from A to B efficiently, the disadvantage is you can end up power-walking past some hidden gems. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tramped up and down Tottenham Court Road, passing Heal’s and (the now closed) Habitat. In fact, I even worked in an office a few streets parallel to this area for a period. Yet in all those years I’ve never once noticed Whitfield Gardens, which is something of a pity (at least now) following its transformation by landscape designer LDA Design and Michael Grubb Studio. As Melissa Byers’ article from page six makes clear, it is evidently another place I need to add to my list to visit whenever I finally get back to London post lockdown. For me, the power and resonance of the new design for Whitefield Gardens is the way it has reclaimed a space that had become neglected, decayed and even dangerous at night for the local community, in the process creating a vibrant, social and engaging outdoor ‘hub’ – and how lighting has been instrumental in achieving this. To my mind, it also neatly illustrates one of the central arguments Karl Jones is making from page 10. This is, namely, the importance of landscape and visual impact assessment as a vehicle for place-making and, within this, the critical role that lighting professionals have in helping planners and others to understand the links between light and landscape, even if, in this case, the ‘landscape’ is more urban than rural. How we think about, interact and engage with, and illuminate nightscapes is also at the heart of our discussion of the new ILP ‘Write, Light, Night’ booklist launched with the International Nighttime Design Initiative, from page 16. Listening in, I found the online debate and discussion absolutely fascinating and intend to add Beata Denton’s recommendation, Marguerite Duras’ 1953 novel The Little Horses of Tarquinia, to my future reading list. If you get a chance, do go online to check out this valuable new resource. Finally, this edition also marks the welcome return of ‘How to be brilliant’, from page 46, which saw David Gilbey give a passionate and energetic talk last month on ‘how to be brilliant at telling stories with light’. Like so much over the past 12 months, David’s talk, the ‘Write, Light, Night’ event and Karl Jones’ webinar were all digital events by necessity. Even if, as we all hope, the Covid-19 vaccine rollout means physical networking and CPD events may return at some point, the reality is that digital talks, webinars and courses will remain the norm for some time to come yet. The ILP has been working extremely hard over the past year to ramp up its activity in this area, with its ‘Light, Seen’ Premier member-led CPD events now another regular in the calendar (and we shall be looking at these in more detail next month). In fact, when you look across the piece, and from pretty much a standing start, the ILP now has an impressive and wide-ranging programme of virtual CPD events, courses and training available . I know it’s not the same as physical get-togethers, and I know we’re all spending more time than we’d like on our screens these days. However, if you can, please do register, engage with and take part in what is developing into a significant body of online CPD activity, one that is building all the time. Nic Paton Editor

The views or statements expressed in these pages do not necessarily accord with those of The Institution of Lighting Professionals or the Lighting Journal’s editor. Photocopying of Lighting Journal items for private use is permitted, but not for commercial purposes or economic gain. Reprints of material published in these pages is available for a fee, on application to the editor.

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ALL THE

PEOPLE After years of natural decline into an overgrown, badly lit and unwelcoming space at night, Whitfield Gardens in central London has been given a new vibrant visual identity, one that will give it renewed purpose and civic resonance as we emerge from lockdown. And lighting has been at the heart of its regeneration By Melissa Byers

park bench may seem an unlikely starting point for an article about lighting, but it is very relevant to the story of Whitfield Gardens, a central London urban square. Most people familiar with London will probably have been there, or passed it by, as it is located very centrally, opposite the Heal’s flagship furnishings store on Tottenham Court Road. LDA Design developed the landscape design and appointed ourselves at Michael Grubb Studio to provide the lighting design, as part of a number of public realm spaces it is redeveloping, together for Camden

Council. The scheme is part of Camden’s hugely ambitious ‘West End Project’, which is the biggest council-led regeneration scheme the borough has ever seen. Over time, Whitfield Gardens had become a very degraded space, beset with overgrown planting. By night it felt unsafe, a virtual (and to some extent a literal) black hole, with limited existing lighting that rendered it an unwelcoming space, one that felt dangerous and a hub for anti-social behaviour. As Sophie Thompson, director at LDA Design, explains: ‘When we listened to the community there was a strong desire to create a safer, more

welcoming and sociable green space, both during the day and at night.’ The humble park bench within our city parks and public spaces has always been an important location. It is a place where people socialise in couples, relax or have lunch; it is somewhere crucial to the health and wellbeing of those living and working in busy city areas – never more so than now, with London’s parks becoming a vital outdoor sanctuary for the capital’s residents and workers during the various periods of lockdown. More widely, park benches have become something of an iconic symbol, favoured by directors as a movie prop in popular films such as

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting

La La Land, Forrest Gump, Love Actually or JFK. They are places where characters fall in love, have a secret meeting or spend a moment in solitude and contemplation.

NEED FOR A NEW VISUAL IDENTITY

Whitfield Gardens had become a space that did not lend itself to any of this and was in dire need of a new narrative, a new visual identity where more people would be welcomed into the space and feel able and enthusiastic to use it. The community wanted to return Whitfield Gardens to being a social space, a place where all people

could feel welcome together. LDA Design also wanted it to become a space that policed itself in the future so that people could enjoy it at all times during the day and evening. We knew that, alongside the wider landscape design, lighting could play a key role in helping to achieve this aim. To that end, the traditional park benches have been replaced with a range of comfortable seating, including social cube cluster seating, long-table dining and some more traditional but longer linear-style benches that allow for larger groups of people and facilitate dining out.

We worked to develop a lighting design that responds to this new narrative, one that creates an extremely warm, tranquil and welcoming ambience. This was achieved by using layers of light with a colour temperature of 2700K throughout, further enhanced by the warm tones of the wood chosen for the hard furnishings within the landscape design. Integrated, linear lighting along the new seating edges creates long, sleek, warm lines of light that define a safe route through the space and present Whitfield Gardens as a welcoming place to sit.

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LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting On the subject of illuminating trees and plantings, the dense overgrown planting around the perimeter of the park had previously evoked a sense of danger and fear about what might be lurking there.

LOW-LEVEL LIGHTING FOR PLANTINGS

A COSY, OUTSIDE ‘LIVING ROOM’

The result? An inside, even cosy, ‘living room’ in an outside space. The opportunity to gather outside, be amongst others, either on our own or in groups, and (of course) in a safe way has never been more relevant or appealing right now. And perhaps this is a reason why the transformation of this relatively small garden in the heart of central London has made such a big impact already. The lighting design also set out to open up the space, to give an enhanced feeling of safety and reassurance to visitors by night as well as to celebrate its importance as a central London location. A centrepiece to this, as well as a physical centrepiece to the park is the newly restored ‘Fitzrovia Mural’ (shown in the main image on the previous page). This massive piece of urban art records and celebrates the life of the local community within and around the park in the 1980s, showing scenes of local life and portraits of local people. Along with the park itself, it had become decayed and degraded and has been faithfully restored as part of the project. Naturally, the lighting scheme lights up and illuminates the mural, allowing it to become, once again, a dramatic and colourful backdrop, providing a bright personality to this part of Fitzrovia. Numerous up-lit plane trees create a complementary, beautiful, natural canopy of light over the gardens. www.theilp.org.uk

LDA Design therefore reconfigured the gardens and introduced attractive and biodiverse planting at low level to ensure clear views across the park and create a woodland feel to the gardens. When it came to the lighting scheme, we illuminated the planting around the edges of the gardens. This ensures people can see all around, further supporting a sense of safety and creating an additional, attractive layer of light. Spotlights on the columns were chosen as they provided a flexible, multi-purpose solution for the lighting. This enabled the illumination of soft planting, tree canopies and routes all to be lit from single column positions around the park. The routes were required to be lit from dusk until dawn, but all decorative lighting is also programmed to turn off at 11pm in order to conserve energy, protect the ecology and wildlife and respect local residents who live above the gardens. One of the challenges for lighting designers working within the public realm is to create a lighting scheme that is innovative and unique, whilst ensuring those responsible have enough confidence in the scheme to maintain and repair it in the future. This often presents something of a dichotomy to overcome, particularly if the new scheme is intended for adoption as part of an existing PFI contract, agreed by the local authority with an external company. For example, it may only be contracted to maintain standard street luminaires and lighting columns from one supplier, or limited suppliers. Conversations therefore need to start early and continue as the lighting design develops, giving careful consideration to the approach. In Whitfield Gardens, access to maintain the spotlights was difficult around the seating, routes and planting. This resulted in a requirement to source hinged columns that could be lowered to the ground for maintenance but still retain the use of spotlights. In addition to this, the lighting columns needed to be lowered at different angles to avoid furniture clashes, so the luminaire layout and column lowering angles all had to be factored in.

PROCESS OF COLLABORATION

The aim is to ensure, as it is on projects of any scale, that the overall lighting design intent is protected by thinking creatively; that you can deliver the unconventional within a conventional framework, a framework that is acceptable via a process of collaboration with the relevant parties. In this instance, although the original desired column style had to change, the lighting approach was retained. I’ll leave the final word to Sophie Thompson at LDA Design. ‘The successful redevelopment of Whitfield Gardens is the result of a genuine collaboration between landscape and lighting designers, engineers, project managers, contractors and client. ‘Michael Grubb Studio successfully balanced place-making and technical considerations to create a beautiful and welcoming space that puts people first,’ she says. After three months of living cooped up indoors in lockdown, rarely has the arrival of spring been more welcome than this year. Whitfield Gardens, now rejuvenated and restored, has become, once again, an attractive and welcoming destination. At the moment the space is being much enjoyed by local residents but stands ready for future visits from wider Londoners and visitors alike. Much like Britpop band Blur’s iconic song Parklife, let’s hope that ‘all the people, so many people’ will once again be able – and want – to use Whitfield Gardens, to ‘go hand in hand through their Parklife’, in a new welcoming, lighting-led narrative.

PROJECT CREDITS

Lighting design: Michael Grubb Studio Landscape design: LDA Design Client: Camden Council (camden. gov.uk/westendproject) Engineering: Arcadis Project management: Norman Rourke Pryme

Melissa Byers is associate at Michael Grubb Studio

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LINKING LIGHT AND LANDSCAPE Lighting professionals have a critical role to play in helping planners and others to understand and assess the links between light and landscape, an ILP webinar led by landscape architect Karl Jones heard recently. A review of planning policy this year could also provide an important opportunity to explicitly link the environment effects of artificial light with national planning policy

By Nic Paton

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm and exterior lighting

hen it comes to thinking about lighting and landscape, the ILPs PLG04 is the lighting professional’s friend. The PLG, Guidance on undertaking environmental lighting impact assessments , outlines best practice around the production and assessment of lighting impacts within new developments, how to produce a lighting assessment, the role of the lighting designer in this context, and how a lighting professional’s input (ideally early on in the process) can help to remove or minimise environmental problems [1]. However, as landscape architect Karl Jones explained via a recent ILP webinar there are many other ‘friends’ lighting professionals need to be bringing into the mix when working to achieve healthier (in all senses) illuminated landscapes. The effective mitigation of unnecessary light within a landscape, whether urban, rural or a mix, very much needs to be an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary process. Karl, managing director of Crestwood Environmental, presented a webinar for ILP members on ‘Lighting and the landscape’ just before Christmas. In many respects, his discussion built upon his February 2019 article in Lighting Journal, ‘Assessing nightscapes’ (vol 84, no 2) but also the ILP debate around light pollution that took place at LuxLive in November (‘Star bright’, January 2021, vol 86, no 1), and the recent Ten Dark Sky policies for the government report by the new All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies [2]. It is also a valuable addition to the growing CPD library of webinars, online events and courses that are being developed and delivered by the ILP for members. Karl’s presentation highlighted how the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and associated guidance is starting to recognise and increase the importance of lighting design and assessment in planning applications [3]. The presentation also focused on five key discussion points:

• • • • •

Providing a better understanding of the link between landscape and dark skies and terminology Helping lighting professionals better understand the visual aspects of landscape The role of landscape and visual impact assessments (LVIAs) The overlap between LVIAs and lighting impact assessments The importance of working effectively in an interdisciplinary manner

The notion of ‘landscape character’ is intrinsically linked to a variety of aspects, he explained. These include perceptual, aesthetic and physical attributes where, for example, different ecology, heritage and lighting characteristics contribute to distinguish one place from another. The assessment of ‘effects’, in other words the resultant changes brought about by new development on landscape character and visual amenity, regularly forms a chapter of an environmental statement when undertaking environmental impact assessments (EIA). LVIAs have most often focused on daytime effects, meaning that other times of the day (dusk, night and dawn) can often end up being overlooked. Yet, as most lighting professionals will also know only too well, these are massively important in the context of ‘effect’ and need to be an important component of the iterative design and assessment process. Therefore, within this, the assessment of environmental effects (including those on humans), is becoming an increasingly multidisciplinary task, and one that requires a common understanding across disciplines as well as multi-functional solutions, Karl argued.

UNDERSTANDING ‘LANDSCAPE’

Karl began his presentation by going back to basics and outlining what we even mean by the term ‘landscape’. As he explained: ‘From

a UK perspective, the European Landscape Convention (ELC), to which the UK remains a signatory, being unaffected by Brexit, defines “landscape” as: “an area as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.” ‘Importantly, it encompasses a wide range of landscape types. These could include urban areas, wasteland, seascapes, deserts etc., not just picturesque countryside. And it is described by visible and non-visible landscape elements; that is, for example, vegetation, buildings, cultural history connections, lighting and so on. Overall, it creates an experiential association with the place that affects its perception. Together, these interactions distinguish landscape from the physical aspects of land and landform. ‘Importantly, landscape is persons’ habitat, not just wildlife. And our experience of landscape contributes to our wellbeing, affecting us on a daily basis and contributing to our quality of life,’ Karl said. Within this, the sky’s contribution to our natural environment, particularly at night, was something that had historically been under-considered, although this was starting to improve. ‘Landscape is an environmental resource in its own right; it can be an indicator of environmental quality. A consideration of effects on landscape can refer to the key characteristics defining the area’s landscape character at a given geographical scale. And, of course, lighting itself can be a key characteristic defining a place at night. ‘But there are wide variations of character in the nightscape on a relatively small geographical scale, right through worldwide. Landscape character (at night and during the day) is essentially how a landscape and the experience of being there would be described; giving it identity,’ he said. Dark skies and the absence of visible light sources was increasingly being recognised

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Public realm and exterior lighting

Karl Jones highlighted how great lighting can be used positively to emphasise landscape features for one-off events such as the Night of Heritage Light. In 2016, for example, it illuminated parts of the Jurassic Coast and, as shown here in 2017, a more urban landscape in the shape of Oxford University. Photograph by Manny Stone

as an important, and positive, characteristic within any discussions around nightscapes. ‘It may be considered to be a significant effect in an EIA, or a material consideration in terms of other planning decision-making,’ Karl pointed out. ‘The contributing elements to (non-monetary) landscape value and valued landscapes in relation to lighting could be a sky full of stars inspiring poets, writers or other artists in relation to place, which could be a valued cultural aspect of their locality. Dark skies and a perceived absence of lighting also provide important contributions to tranquillity and even “wildness”. ‘Just on tranquillity, this is the subjective experience of being at a location that provides individuals with space and conditions to relax, achieve balance and a sense of distance from stress and relates to the aims of biophilic design. ‘Tranquil areas are often associated with quiet, being remote or appearing remote, natural, non-developed, non-built up and non-busy areas. They are an increasingly valuable and elusive resource, especially in the UK that promotes wellbeing; a highly valued, desirable characteristic of landscape. ‘Surveys in the UK show tranquillity to be the most valued quality of countryside. When we talk about wellbeing, we talk

about healthy places, and this links with biophilic design theory encouraging connection with nature; that is, natural materials or forms, water, vegetation, and makes people feel comfortable and at ease, reducing fatigue and stress. ‘Lighting can have direct and indirect health effects, for example through light sensitivity, flicker frequency and glare, effects of blue wavelengths on melatonin and sleep, and through reduced connection with natural characteristics, such as dark skies, and of course reduced tranquillity. ‘When assessing landscape effects, we talk about landscape assessment and this considers the individual and cumulative landscape effects of development. It questions: are the key characteristics of the night landscape character areas and the factors for determining the valued landscapes as remote from the site significantly affected? It questions: is perception of a dark area changed by visible lights? Is it less tranquil or less wild? And is the dark green infrastructure integrity at night compromised?’ Karl highlighted.

MITIGATING LIGHT POLLUTION

The role and professional judgement of the landscape architect was important in this context to determine the significance

of changes proposed. The input of lighting professionals was also valuable when it came to understanding the effects of any potential light mitigation options. However, it was also important to recognise that visual and landscape aspects are distinct considerations. ‘Visual assessment is separate from landscape assessment and considers the individual and cumulative visual effects of development, including infrastructure, on daytime views, on night-time visual amenity and on lighting hierarchy, for example different architectural features,’ said Karl. ‘Visual sensitivity and magnitude of effect from developments at night may be very different to those in the daytime. A lit luminaire’s visibility is potentially much more wide-reaching than less conspicuous daytime changes. A person with a good vision would just be able to make out two distinct headlights on a car from 3km away. ‘In relation to lighting hierarchy, poor lighting can detract or distract from key visual or landscape hierarchy, reducing the influence of positive key characteristics. Or this can be used positively of course to emphasise landscape features for one-off events, for example as used during the Night of Heritage Light or as a permanent landscape feature,’ Karl pointed out [4].

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Public realm and exterior lighting ‘Internal light sources can of course also have an external effect, notably through increased glazing, including roof glazing, on modern buildings. This obtrusive light is specifically looked at by lighting professionals and environmental health officers, not landscape architects, and is considered to be light nuisance, which is artificial lighting that is prejudicial to health or be a nuisance. It can be a statutory nuisance and is human-focused light pollution, which is artificial light that shines outside the area it is intended to illuminate, creating spill light, and potentially causing skyglow and glare. ‘These may have indirect effects on people, for example the remote visibility of light sources or skyglow having landscape or visual effects, or the brightening of habitat corridors or dark green infrastructure having ecological and landscape effects. ‘When we talk about skyglow, we are talking about the brightening of the night sky because of air molecules and aerosols scattering spill light and ground-reflected light. This has a different spectral distribution to natural moonlight and can have a wide-reaching effect for tens of kilometres on landscape character and tranquillity at night,’ Karl emphasised. He then turned to discussing the role, and merits, of dark skies parks and reserves and the ‘E’ environmental rating system for exterior lighting, with E0 being the darkest rising to E4 as the brightest. ‘Environmental zones and policies provide certain control at that location, but don’t allow for visual or landscape effect on character remote from the environmental zone. They don’t allow for the effect of internal light sources on external environment and they don’t provide for positive lighting hierarchy and focused aesthetic light detailing, for example for architectural heritage features. They don’t allow for lights from vehicles and are not effective at controlling certain developments and domestic installations,’ Karl pointed out. ‘The night sky is a natural and cultural asset worthy of preservation where it is there and restoration where it is not. Without a direct view of the stars, mankind is said to be cut off from most of the universe, deprived of any direct sense of its huge scale and our tiny planet within it.

‘There is a fundamental link between the stars and ourselves. When we look up at the night sky we know that this is where we came from; that the universe is within us and there is a level of connectivity. This connectivity also links us to previous family generations. We have probably all experienced this exact same view when light pollution was largely absent, in the context of an otherwise very different world,’ he added, highlighting that the CPRE’s 2020 ‘star count’ had found that fully 61% of us are experiencing severe light pollution affecting the visibility of the sky around us at night [5]. ‘People who have not experienced dark skies may not miss it, but the absence of dark skies removes the largest scale visible key component of our natural environment. Whilst there may be many factors that contribute to quality of life, the contribution of lighting effect should not be overlooked. By applying the principles of dark skies reserves to good design and assessment everywhere can enhance virt u a l l y a l l l i g h t s c h e m e s,’ Ka r l emphasised.

REVIEW OF PLANNING POLICY EXPECTED LATER THIS YEAR

Critically, there is an important opportunity to be promoting this agenda during this year, Karl made clear. This is because the most recent (2018) iteration of the National Planning Policy Framework is due to be being revised during the first half of 2021, with a consultation closing last month [6]. As Karl pointed out: ‘It could be a threshold moment for more explicitly linking the environment effects of artificial light with planning policy, including the relationship to landscape. ‘Creating sustainable lighting designs that meet everyone’s environmental requirements is not easy; it requires a good understanding from the designers, the assessors and the decision-making authority of the variety of environmental objects that relate to the design process,’ he added. Landscape and visual impact assessment also goes hand in hand with place-making, Karl highlighted. ‘It can have a positive role to play in helping to guide the right type and amount of lighting to define a place or reinforce an existing

[1] PLG04 (2013) Guidance on undertaking environmental lighting impact assessments, The ILP, https://theilp.org.uk/publication/plg04-guidance-on-undertakingenvironmental-lighting-impact-assessments/ [2] ‘Assessing nightscapes’, Lighting Journal, February 2019, https://issuu.com/matrixprint/docs/lj_feb_2019_ issuu/6; ‘Star bright’, Lighting Journal, January 2021; ‘Ten Dark Sky policies for the government’, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies, December 2020, https://appgdarkskies.co.uk/ [3] National Planning Policy Framework, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, https://www.gov.uk/government/ publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2 [4] Night of Heritage Light, CIBSE/SLL, https://www.cibse.org/society-of-light-and-lighting-sll/sll-events/nightof-heritage-light-(nohl) [5] ‘Star Count 2020 shows 61% live in areas with severe light pollution’, CPRE The Countryside Charity, https://www.cpre.org.uk/about-us/ cpre-media/star-count-2020-shows-severe-light-pollution/ [6] National Planning Policy Framework and National Model Design Code: consultation proposals, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, February 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/national-planning-policy-framework-and-nationalmodel-design-code-consultation-proposals/national-planning-policy-framework-and-national-model-design-code-consultation-proposals

www.theilp.org.uk

CHECK OUT THE FULL WEBINAR

The full webinar, ‘Lighting and the landscape’, can be viewed at https:// theilp.org.uk/project/ ilp-cpd-webinar-lighting-and-thelandscape/

character, to provide fresh perspectives, for example of a feature or building seen at night versus during the day, achieve a net gain in the quality of the environment overall, and provide multifunctional spaces for the 24-hour economy. ‘LVIA is an iterative design and assessment process, not just a report-writing exercise. It informs the design or planning team on opportunities or constraints and on unacceptable adverse effects that may be designed out and requires interdisciplinary liaison to fully understand the contributors to landscape value, for example ecology and cultural heritage,’ he added. This led on to his final area of focus: the need for a more inclusive, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary approach so as to lead to a better, more consistent, more reliable, more sympathetic planning, assessment and decision-making process. This needed to be a process involving lighting professionals, architects, engineers, heritage professionals, planning professionals, ecologists, and landscape architect, he argued. ‘We collectively have an important role to play in determining how our environment, our nightscapes, evolve. Improved interdisciplinary working will help to reverse light pollution, lead to healthier landscapes, improved quality of life and wellbeing, and beneficial effects on various environmental aspects,’ Karl argued. ‘Hopefully, the well-used adage, “right light, right place, right time” can be achievable holistically with the right interdisciplinary input and understanding from the start of the project. There is still a lot of work to be done to develop this area, certainly in terms of education, product development, assessment, including visualising effects, and development planning. But I am optimistic of accelerated positive change from 2021,’ he added.

Karl has said he is happy to be contacted by ILP members who wish to discuss these issues in more depth. His email address is : karl@crestwoodenvironmental.co.uk

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BED-TIME READING The ILP has linked up with the International Nighttime Design Initiative to launch a new resource for ILP members, the ‘Write, Light, Night’ booklist designed to raise awareness of books to help lighting professionals think about and reflect on night-time design. A launch event also delved into our changing perceptions of night, shade and dark

By Nic Paton

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Urban nightscapes

egular readers of Lighting Journal will be well aware that the pandemic and lockdowns of the past year have prompted an intense discussion among lighting designers about our urban nightscape and the role of light and lighting within any future postCovid night economy. It is a conversation that led last summer to the ILP linking up with the International Nighttime Design Initiative (NTD) to run a high-level panel discussion around how lighting might be able to help the night economy recover post pandemic (‘Remaking the night?’, July/August 2020, vol 85, no 7). It fed into a panel debate led by Mark

Major of Speirs Major around how the experience of the pandemic might even create an opportunity to return darkness to at least some of our urban fabric (‘Dark designs’, September 2020, vol 85, no 6). These questions, of course, don’t have any easy or even short-term answers. But our perceptions of the night, how they can be coloured, affected and even directed by light, and the role that light and lighting can play in shaping the modern urban nightscape were at the heart of a discussion in February to launch a further joint venture between the ILP and the NTD, the first formal collaboration between the two organisations.

LIBRARY OF NIGHT

Entitled ‘Writing, Lighting and Night – an ever-expanding booklist’, the event marked the launch of a public, co-hosted and curated virtual resource, ‘The Write, Light, Night’ booklist. The project has been founded to raise awareness of high-quality books that cover night-time design (including but not limited to lighting) and how these disciplines can have a positive effect on the planet and society. The initiative is aiming to encourage lighting professionals to recommend books that have resonated with them, write reviews and browse the booklist to enhance their own learning. The project is

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Urban nightscapes t The virtual launch event for the Write, Light, Night booklist initiative

being run through an online platform called The Library Thing, and more details of how to register and get involved are in the panel at the end of this article. The event was opened by Leni Schwendinger, creative director and leader at the NTD, and Graham Festenstein, the ILP’s Vice President – Architectural and owner of Graham Festenstein Lighting Design. ‘We’ve been dreaming about this booklist, or a library, or a bibliography – we didn’t really know what it was – for a good number of years,’ said Leni. ‘This booklist is particularly interesting because it expands beyond lighting and looks at the context of the environment, urban design and, importantly, the inspirations that designers draw upon when they are working in these environments. So, this is particularly relevant to the Institution and for our members,’ added Graham. At the launch event a virtual audience of ILP and NTD members as well as other lighting professionals listened to a discussion chaired by ‘librarian’ Nick Dunn, architect and designer, professor of urban design and executive director of ‘ImaginationLancaster’ at Lancaster University.

FOUR ‘BOOK WORMS’

Nick invited four ‘book worms’ – Cristina Gil Venegas, Mark Ridler, Alex DeWitt and Beata Denton – to talk about a book that had inspired them and their practice, and why. First up was Colombian lighting designer Cristina Gil Venegas, founder of ‘The Nighttime Traveller’, a research project examining ways in which women interact with the urban environment after dark. For her book she chose, In Praise of Shadows, by Japanese author and novelist Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. ‘Tanizaki introduces us to a journey through Japanese culture; talking about housing, culture, people, the appearance

of places and things, and adding to it a lot of layers and shadows. He talks about how to discover things and places,’ she explained. ‘A sentence I really love about this book says, “if light is the scariest then light is the scarcest”. We immerse ourselves in the darkness and discover its own particular beauty,’ she said, adding that, in her view, the key to discovering the essence of our cities at night was to realise that we don’t need to overlight them. Mark Ridler, head of lighting at BDP, chose Stage Lighting, by Richard Pilbrow. While this was at one level a ‘how to’ guide to theatre and stage lighting, it was much more than that, he explained. ‘It helped me enormously to get up the learning curve and discover some of the things that lighting was all about. It was revelatory for me because it set out the physical nature of how lighting interacts with the human form in its physical context. But it also caught its emotional power and the way in which changing time impacts perception and feeling. Whilst it’s a how to, it starts with a very non-scientific – no calculations – exploration of light,’ Mark said, adding: ‘It was, “wow, maybe I could do this as a career?”.’ The book helped him to recognise and understand that, while lighting is of course a physical thing, the way we perceive it is fundamentally physiological and psychological. ‘I still refer to this [the book] now; I come back to it periodically,’ Mark said. ‘I think one of the things that I love about it is that it is still relevant to the current generation. One of my daughter’s friends has just left the same university I went to and is discovering theatre lighting and I know he has a copy, the third edition, and it has still got relevance. I thoroughly recommend it.’ The next ‘book worm’ was Alex DeWitt, a New York-based urban place maker, planner and photographer. He chose two texts: Planning the Night-time City by

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Marion Roberts and Adam Eldridge and Cities Alive: Rethinking the Shades of Night, by Arup and Leni Schwendinger. ‘Both of these books, together, bring I think an important perspective in lighting and planning, which is how lighting can influence the public realm and have a positive impact on how we view, appreciate and participate in the night,’ Alex explained, emphasising the need for a more inclusive urban realm at night. ‘The books are important to me because they changed my career path. I chose to focus on night-time planning after reading Marion Roberts’ book because it is important, and it is something planners don’t think about. Most of the time we stop work at 5pm and we have our own lives and nobody is really thinking about the public realm after-hours,’ he added. The final ‘book worm’ was Beata Denton, architect and lighting designer at Reflex Arkitekter in Stockholm, Sweden. She, intriguingly, chose a fiction book, Marguerite Duras’ 1953 novel The Little Horses of Tarquinia, which, as she put it, was ‘a little book packed with light’. It is about a group of friends who are holidaying on the western coast of Italy during one intensely hot summer. ‘The main impression that stays with me is the light. It is just like a weight on you; it is almost claustrophobic; the light that they’re in all the time, they just can’t escape it,’ said Beata. ‘It is omnipresent and they are so enclosed in this light. It affects how they interact; the way they use the space; where they go, how they talk to each other. They try to seek out shade or places where they can hide away. It might be a shadow along the wall of a house. There is a tiny hotel with a terrace that has a leafy canopy. They sit down there and drink their Campari bitters. They go out on the lake or on the sea and “the clefted light was so strong that you couldn’t look at the marble rocks without it hurting”,’ she quoted from the novel. ‘I work with interiors, mainly office space, and this book makes me reflect on this massive bombardment of light. It is the default, at least here in Sweden, that you do office spaces with LED panels, 60 x 60, just a flat light that kills all life, basically,’ Beata pointed out. This, too often, led to a similar focus on trying to escape this constant, monotonous, flat light all the time. ‘It affects how you talk to your colleagues, it affects how you do your

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Urban nightscapes work, and you try and seek out places where you can sit and have a different feeling or look inside yourself to find some inspiration. So it is very important to have a variation in light, I think. ‘It is so interesting to me how a lot of light, a little light, affects our mood and the way we feel and experience everything around us,’ she added.

FLUID, NON-UNIFORM SPACES

The event now moved to more of a discussion, with Nick Dunn taking questions from the audience as well as throwing some in himself. Nightscapes, he highlighted, are not a uniform space; they are often gendered, racialised and come with all kinds of complications. ‘They are not a homogenous experience or a place of equality. So, how can we encourage people to think differently about the amount of light that they have and the ways in which we interact with light and dark in our lives?’ he asked. ‘I think it is through experience,’ said Mark Ridler. ‘When you are only presenting numbers, presenting on paper or in theory; when a client is very risk averse and they just want to know that they’re not going to get sued, then it falls back to numbers. ‘But light is a very visceral thing. There is always this tension between safety and risk aversion, and having somebody creative showing the dream, showing what is possible. But it is a process of showing and experience that, I think, tells that story,’ he added. ‘One of the challenges with space and lighting is that no one really understands that it is the lighting, or the lack of light, that makes them feel the way they do,’ pointed out Beata Denton. ‘We have to try and encourage people to learn, because a lot of people, they just feel good in a space but don’t know why. When you point out to them that it is the lighting or the lack of light, it is like a revelation to them. So, we need to talk about light.’ ‘I think it is helpful if we can consider light as a language in itself,’ suggested Alex DeWitt. ‘The built environment – the buildings, the sidewalks, the foliage, the trees – all of it is the canvas that we write this “novel” or whatever it is on. We use this light language in the urban realm. If we can start to think of it that way, it kind of gives it more importance, and we can really see what it actually is for us, because of a lot of people take it for granted because it is very ethereal and not tangible. But it should be thought of with importance.’ Tanizaki talked about the essence of a space, that we are not just using light to make a space bright but to create an atmosphere, emphasised Cristina Gil Venegas. ‘If we recreate the emotions that we are going to feel in that place, it is easier to find an accurate www.theilp.org.uk

light, an accurate amount for the place, rather than just to talk about the light by itself. It is about translating emotions within a physical space,’ she said.

ENGAGING WITH OTHER DISCIPLINES

Given that post pandemic there is likely to be much more of an emphasis on people using, interacting with and engaging with outdoor spaces, both during the daytime and at night, what role could lighting and lighting professionals play in articulating that balance that needs to be reached between light, night and health, questioned Nick Dunn. ‘I think it is achievable when you solve a lot of the conflicts that there are currently at night,’ said Alex DeWitt. ‘A lot of that is to do with perceptions of safety, but it also has to do with the type and breadth of activities available for people to do at night. A lot of people think night is specifically for younger people or single people or whatever it is. But the original idea of the 24-hour city was for an inclusive night that was beneficial for everyone living in urban centres. ‘Until we can solve those conflicts, the night-time economy can’t really expand much farther than it has. We have to pivot away from just strictly entertainment as well. There is an over-saturation of entertainment-only: bars and restaurants and nightclubs and so on. That colours our perception of the night a lot,’ he added. Nick Dunn highlighted the importance of lighting, as ‘a rather closed and specialised sector’, working harder to involve, and communicate with, other sectors, especially healthcare. ‘We need to involve other sectors, particularly healthcare, if we are going to get the message across about how important the night environment is to us as the human animal. So how do we change the narrative, how do we begin to tell a different story about our relationship with light?’ he questioned. Lighting consultant Terry John, who had made the point about the need for more collaboration to Nick in the first instance, came in at this point. ‘I think we have an amazing opportunity,’ he pointed out. ‘Strangely enough, Covid I think has given us an opportunity that we need to grasp – because people have suddenly realised just how important our emotional connection is with the world and with each other; that our lit environment is one of our basic human needs. ‘We have completely forgotten that, or we have devalued it because we flick a switch on and change the light. As lighting people, we are actually far more important than we believe we are. If we can talk to some of these other sectors it would be brilliant, because we would raise the value of lighting, or the lit environment, in peo-

ple’s minds generally,’ he added. Mark Ridler then closed the discussion with a final observation. ‘There has been a lot of conversation about night-time and public realm, but I work in the internal realm as well,’ he highlighted. ‘I think we need to be aware of disconnection from the day, too, disconnection from daylight. We turn on the fluorescent light and that provides us with enough light to see what we have to do. But it doesn’t feed us with the emotional and physiological light that we are only beginning to discover we need, but have known intuitively that we have needed for a long time. So, when you come to this library, don’t only look for books on the night, also look for the day,’ he advised.

HOW TO JOIN THE BOOKLIST

The ‘Write, Light, Night’ booklist can be accessed through The Library Thing (www.librarything.com/) which is a free cataloguing and social networking site for people who love books. To access the booklist itself go to www.librarything.com/catalog/WriteLightNight. All you need to do then is choose a book and click on it. You can use the list to find out about the book and the author, collections and tags, reviews, recommendations. The booklist has been grouped into three collections: ‘light’, ‘night’ and ‘context’.’ The ILP’s pre-existing booklist project ‘Light List’ has also been wrapped into the current platform, and can be found at www. librarything.com/catalog/ The_ILP A recording of the full launch event can be found at https:// theilp.org.uk/project/writinglighting-and-night-an-ever-expanding-booklist/ along with a six-minute guide to The Library Thing.

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CITY SMART Started in 2018, a smart city project for the City of London is now finished and aims to provide a flexible, interoperable communications infrastructure that will help to reduce pollution and energy consumption and manage traffic and transport systems more effectively

By Giles Radford

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting

ccupying just over a square mile, the City of London is the historic heart of the capital, defined by its unique architecture – a mix of old and new – and the area’s medieval street pattern, complete with narrow streets and alleyways. The City is, as we all know, the UK’s centre of commerce and one of the largest financial hubs in the world, home to the Stock Exchange and the Bank of England. Because of this, a large proportion of the daytime population does not live within the City itself, residing outside of the ‘Square Mile’ at night. Its tourism attractions and famous landmarks compound this problem. The City has only 9,400 permanent residents, but around 450,000 people at the busiest times. This makes accommodating and moving this number of people within the medieval footprint and urban canyons challenging. The City of London uses the term ‘conflict area’ to describe the areas that are most difficult, and uses street lighting as a solution to this problem, and to create a safe and vibrant environment. However, with much of this ageing stock more than 30 years old, the City’s lighting was nearing the end of its useful life. Using an old Cyclo system, which basically sends a pulse down the electrical cable allowing the lights to be turned on and off, the lighting had become redundant over the years and was no longer fit for purpose. It was also no longer supported by UK Power Networks. The City’s inventory included 9,500 streetlights, 1,300 road lights, and 1,600 ‘specials’ – more than 12,000 lights in total. There were about 45 different types of lights that needed standardising, and all were on unmetered power supplies, which required effort to rationalise when it came to billing. During the three-year overhaul project, the old units were replaced, helping to reduce the City’s carbon footprint and, importantly, lower its maintenance costs. Like many cities, London has to cope with rising energy costs, with the added challenge of a carbon tax introduced by the UK government. According to the City of London Corporation, it has already saved 60% on its energy costs between 2018 and 2020 since installing the new street lighting. As well as the functional element of lighting up streets, road signs, bridges and tunnels and floodlighting, there was an aesthetic element to the project in that it needed to be sympathetic to the environment and light up the City’s iconic

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Public realm lighting

landmarks, such St Paul’s Cathedral, as well as fountains, and tree and festive lighting. LEDs and a CMS would allow the City to set the scene of its historic assets, using the tuneable settings of digital lighting that are not so easily achievable using analogue lights. Adaptive visual design was a key requirement, but having control over the lighting stock was critical.

TACKLING UNIQUE CHALLENGES

What makes London so special is what also makes it so challenging for technology projects. It became clear during the procurement process and trials that there would be some issues to overcome. The City’s environment, for example, with its narrow lanes and tall buildings made of glass and steel, can create connectivity problems for many communications technologies, such as cellular, which struggle to reach into the narrow streets and urban canyons between skyscrapers. The street lighting therefore required a communications technology that could carry a signal where and when it is needed. The answer was a high-performance City-wide wireless mesh network supported by Wi-SUN Field Area Networks (FAN) technology. An open and flexible city management based on Wi-SUN technology would meet all of the requirements, while helping to www.theilp.org.uk

future-proof the City for other smart functionality and devices. The project was ambitious, in that we were coping with the architectural and structural challenges that the City presents. But, at the same time, it was exciting to, finally, be putting in place a network that would meet our needs for lighting management and control, for example changing lighting levels when we needed and providing fault reporting. The great thing about the Wi-SUN FAN system is that it can support this level of control and management through a CMS. But, in truth, what really sold it to us was the fact it is an open standards-based platform. This has allowed us to introduce other smart devices and sensors, such as for traffic and environmental monitoring, asset management and waste management, across the network, all of which can provide key data to manage our assets more effectively. Naturally, the City of London, as a local authority, tested the full capabilities of the network during the pilot phase, to ensure it provided full coverage and resilience even in the densest, narrowest parts of the City. This very much had to be an inclusive, collaborative process, involving all the internal stakeholders, including public realm, transportation, open spaces and environmental health. Externally, too, there was extensive consultation with

residents, workers and visitors, the City of London Police and Transport for London to create what we call ‘a whole sense of place to the City’. Alongside this activity, there were also parallel programmes to consider. These included real-time reporting in line with a service-based and strategic energy review, reduction in energy consumption to deliver financial savings, and alignment to the wider Internet of Things (IoT) initiative. Over a three-year period, the City of London partnered with Urban Control, a smart city solutions company and Wi-SUN Alliance member, Itron. Exterior lighting specialists DW Windsor provided the new lighting stock, which included 12,000 LED luminaires supported by 10 gateways using Wi-SUN FAN’s self-forming, self-healing mesh technology. Urban Control’s software-based security offerings were used to comply with the City’s stringent requirements.

THE ‘GLUE’ OF WIRELESS MESH NETWORKING

It’s worth taking a moment to look at wireless mesh in more detail because, for me, wireless mesh is fast becoming the ‘glue’ that holds smart cities together, thanks to its excellent network coverage, scalability, enterprise-grade security and reliable communications.

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The nature of the mesh network topology provides an advantage when deploying LED streetlights using wireless connectivity. It delivers more control and management through to the local authority office via a border router, which takes the wireless mesh and runs it across either cellular or fibre, or most convenient backhaul connection. Once up and running, local authorities can therefore deploy other sensors on to the network, such as traffic and parking signals, which connect into the communications fabric. They can continue to add sensors for applications, such as environmental and air-quality monitoring and waste management, which join as leaf nodes (so low-powered battery devices). The self-forming, self-healing nature of the network means that, if there is interference or a device fails causing a communication problem on one route, traffic is automatically re-routed through the mesh.

CONCLUSIONS – JUST THE BEGINNING

While the City of London street lighting initiative is now finished, it is important to emphasise that this project is only part of the City’s journey to become a truly smart city; we have plans to deliver additional applications and services in the future.

We are seeing more smart city initiatives being rolled out around the world to help meet environmental targets, reduce energy costs and improve health and wellbeing, as well as cope with increased urbanisation. The idea, therefore, of a smart city is evolving. But, in simple terms, ‘smart’ increasingly means creating a communications network where connected devices and applications can provide not just enhanced functionality but, actually, tangibly help to improve the lives of citizens, whether that’s through less pollution, greater safety or better transport systems. Converting legacy streetlights, many of which have been in place for decades, into a smart lighting network has become an important part of this digital transformation process, and in many cases, the ‘entry point’ for city developers and local authorities when designing and planning a smart city. In fact, analyst firm IoT Analytics estimates that the connected streetlights market will surpass US$3.6bn by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 21% from 2018, driven by more deployments, more interconnectivity and more collaboration between utilities and other service providers, city developers, local authorities and governments [1]. The message then for lighting professionals, clearly, is not just ‘watch this space’ but ‘watch this space grow’.

[1] Connected Streetlights Market Report 2018-2023, IoT Analytics, https://iot-analytics.com/product/connected-streetlights-report-2018/

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FIND OUT MORE

For ILP members interested in finding out more about this project, Giles Radford has presented a video on it, which can be found on YouTube, at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=3nQDSqx3S3w

PROJECT CREDITS

Client: C i t y o f L o n d o n Corporation Technology providers: Wi-SUN Alliance, Itron, and Urban Control Lighting: DW Windsor

Giles Radford is highways manager for the City of London

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‘CE’ THE DIFFERENCE Brexit and the UK’s departure from the European Union mean significant changes to the use and application of the CE mark as well as energy efficiency labelling. But the good news is it’s not happening all at once The ILP has linked up with the International Nighttime Design Initiative to launch a new resource for ILP members, the ‘Write, Light, Night’ booklist designed to raise awareness of books to help lighting professionals think about and reflect on night-time design. A launch event also delved into our By Allan Howard changing perceptions of night, shade and dark By Nic Paton

ost lighting professionals will be very familiar with the CE mark. The CE mark is the symbol applied to products to indicate their conformity with the essential requirements of the relevant European Union (EU) directives regarding health and safety or environmental protection. The letters ‘CE’ are an abbreviation and come from the French phrase ‘Conformité Européene’, which literally means ‘European Conformity’. The CE mark is mandatory for specific products that are sold in the European Economic Area (EEA). Now, with Brexit completed and the UK out of the European Union, including the customs union, the EEA and single market, this article intends to look at how our changed status in relation to Europe will also mean changes for the lighting industry when it comes to the use and application of the CE mark and, as we shall see, its post-Brexit replacement.

THE CE MARK AND THE ‘CHINA EXPORT’ ‘CE’ MARK

The first point to make clear in all this is, in fact, not about Europe and the EU at all, but confusion with similar marks. This is because it is important not to confuse the EU’s CE mark with what has become termed the ‘China Export’ mark (and so which can potentially also be shortened to ‘CE’). To confuse matters even further, the logos for the two marks are similar in design (see figure 1 opposite). This similarity in design means the two marks can often be confused and thus a product considered safe for use when it should not be. Products with the “China Export” CE mark will not have had the relevant risk assessment, safety evaluation or testing and as such are not certified against the relevant EU CE standards. Bear in mind, too, that products bearing the ‘China Export’ mark can vary from being acceptable to highly dangerous. If we look again more closely at figure 1, it may help to compare the two marks side by

side; as you see the characters are not exactly the same. In particular, it is the spacing between them that distinguishes the difference. The correct EU CE mark also has the ‘E’ starting on the circle profile drawn out by the ‘C’ character. Nevertheless, it pays to be vigilant!

THE POST-BREXIT UKCA MARK

The UKCA mark (UK Conformity Assessed) is the replacement for CE marking in Great Britain (in other words, England, Scotland and Wales) post Brexit. It serves the same purpose as the CE mark, but just recognising the fact that Great Britain is no longer a member of the European Union. The regulations and directives that created the legal structure for the CE marking have been adopted into UK law and updated to change the terminology and to bring them within the control of the UK government. The UKCA is therefore applicable wherever the CE mark was previously required.

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting, Brexit and the European Union

Figure 1. The EU’s CE mark (left) and the ‘China Export’ CE mark. The logos are, unfortunately, quite similar in design, something that can lead to confusion. However, when examined side by side, there are clear differences

Figure 2. The logo for the new UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed) mark. The post-Brexit mark came into effect in January, but there is a transition period until January 2022 Figure 3. The existing (left) and future energy labels for a fridge. This example has been taken from the European Commission’s guidance [1]

The UKCA mark came into effect on 01 January 2021 but to allow businesses time to adjust to the new requirements the old EU CE mark is still valid until 01 January 2022. However, the UKCA mark is not recognised within the EEA and products for sale within the EU still require the CE mark. Products will be able to display both marks unless and until the rules for those products diverge between the UK and EU, although it is not currently expected that any divergence will happen in the near future. It can only be hoped that overseas manufacturers consider the UK market is sufficient that they look to use the UKCA mark. In this new landscape, it is important for lighting professions to become familiar with this new mark. So the image above (figure 2) is what the UKCA mark looks like.

NORTHERN IRELAND EXEMPTION

It is also important to recognise that the UKCA is not applicable in Northern Ireland, where a new ‘UKNI’ mark has been adopted but only for products where thirdparty certification by a notified body is mandatory. There are very few lighting products that fall into this category, but those for use in explosive environments is one. Ordinarily, Northern Ireland will still require the CE mark for all self-declared products.

THE EU ENERGY LABEL

Beyond the CE mark, another change that has come about because of Brexit is to the EU energy label. This was first introduced in 1992 and has become a familiar sight on

many goods and products. The absolute performance criteria were defined for different types of appliances to determine the energy class of each appliance sold within the EU. These ranged from A (best energy performance) to G (worse energy performance). After a number of years and progress of technology, most appliances were being classed in the highest rating and to manage this in 2011 the EU maintained the criteria but introduced A+ to A+++. We are now at a stage where the problem exists once again and the existing labels are considered confusing to the end user, so the energy labels are being redefined. From last month (in other words March 2021), the labels are set to be rescaled and revert to an A to G grading. In addition, they will contain a QR code allowing the end user to access information on the product. For light sources, the rescaling means that A+++ becomes C with A and B currently unattainable. However – and this is important – also bear in mind that this switch will happen from September for light sources covered by Regulation (EU) 2019/20150. The transition to this new approach for energy labelling will enable consumers to distinguish more clearly between the most energy efficient products. At the same time, it is meant to encourage manufacturers to continue research and innovation into more energy efficient technologies. The light source label is still being developed. But, to provide an idea of the sort of differences to expect, figure 3 above shows the existing and future labels for a refrigerator.

[1] ‘In focus: A new generation of EU energy labels’, European Commission, August 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/focus-new-generation-eu-energy-labels2020-aug-13_en [2] ‘Consultation: Draft Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Regulations (Lighting Products) 2021’, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, November 2020, https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/draft-ecodesign-and-energy-labelling-regulations-lighting-sources-2021

p A cut-out CE mark on a product

GOVERNMENT CONSULTATION

Between November and January, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) carried out a consultation process with the lighting industry in regard to the energy labelling issues discussed above [2]. This included all members of the UK Lighting Liaison Group (LLG), which consists of representatives from all UK professional organisations interested in light and lighting. We await to hear the government’s conclusions from this. Finally, while this all may feel like a lot of change all coming at once, it is important to emphasise that, in general, the approach by the UK is to adopt the current EU regulations and labelling, so as to minimise the change needed. And this was broadly supported by those active in the consultation process. Allan Howard BEng(Hons) CEng FILP FSLL is director for lighting at WSP

www.theilp.org.uk

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

MINE CRAFT Mining is one of the most challenging industrial environments in the world, and lighting is an absolutely critical component in keeping workers safe, facilities running smoothly and product flowing. Yet choosing, specifying, installing and maintaining lighting in this context is anything but straightforward

By Simone Rossi

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting harsh environments

rguably one of the harshest and most challenging industrial environments, the mining industry plays a pivotal role in the global economy. With operators around the world continuously balancing production output, cost efficiency and employee safety, proper lighting is critical equipment in both underground and above ground extraction. That is why mining operators depend on advanced lighting innovations and optimised lighting designs to keep their employees safe, facilities running smoothly and product flowing. But, for lighting designers, creating a plan to maximise visibility with reliable, efficient lighting can be extremely challenging. Between environmental factors, strict regulatory standards and client protocol, lighting designers have a lot of hurdles to address, which this article intends to consider.

TOP CHALLENGES FOR MINE LIGHTING

1. Environmental hazards. Dust and airborne particles can be a dangerous source of ignition in the presence of heat or spark, especially in confined places with little ventilation and where the concentration of explosive compounds may be higher. In such environments, any piece of equipment that may cause a spark or excessive heat would represent a hazard. These hazards can cause spontaneous combustion of both airborne particles and accumulated material on fixtures or explosions. The risks vary depending on the type of ignition source, their concentration and the temperature at which combustion occurs. A classification of hazardous situations is provided by IEC standards and by the European Union’s ATEX Directive 2014/34/EU [1]. The IEC/EN 60079 series provide a list of types of protection manufacturers may adopt to ensure their fixtures are suitable for each class of hazardous location [2]. The most relevant kinds of protection for lighting and related components are: • Flameproofing – preventing any explosion inside the fitting and its associated gases from reaching the outside. • Durability – improving the robustness of the fixture and thusly increasing safety. • Encapsulation – using resin, sand, powder or quartz depending on requirements. • Smart design – organising the internal components to prevent arcing or to m a k e t h e m n o n - i n c e n d i a r y.

Designers must keep these hazards in mind, as well as other factors like humidity, the presence of chemical compounds and even coastal/caustic conditions that can cause corrosion. 2. Physical hazards. From forklifts and bulldozers through to longwall mining machines and conveyor systems, moving equipment can wreak havoc on lighting fixtures, damaging the housing or chassis from impact. This can cause either catastrophic failure or enough damage to compromise components or damage gaskets that prevent material ingress, creating the risk of fire or explosion. For designers, robust fixture selection plays a key role in reducing these risks. 3. Accessibility. Luminaire placement can be a challenge in mining facilities. Often, where the light needs to be for ideal illumination is difficult to access – directly overtop process equipment, for example – which makes installation and maintenance difficult. Many facilities also rely on high-voltage power supplies to run equipment, which is too much for lighting. Designers have to be mindful of both accessibility and infrastructure when designing for these conditions. 4. Safety. Clear visibility is critical for keeping workers safe and preventing incidents like slip, trip and fall hazards from turning into lost time accidents, or worse. In the US alone from 2009-2018, the mining industry suffered nearly 63,000 injuries at a cost of $2.1bn (£1.5bn), and 365 fatalities, costing $373m (£273m) [3]. Better illumination has been proven to decrease workplace accident rates by as much as 60% [4]. Designers must ensure minimum luminance and uniformity requirements for the task to be performed in each location. Any vertical illumination needs must also be accounted for, along with emergency lighting. The design must take into account whether emergency lighting is to be supplied by backup generators, central battery storage or batteries integral to the luminaire in order to specify the right fixtures and layout. 5. The human element. Too often in industrial settings, we forget that humans are part of the equation. In an environment where workers put in long shifts, work overnight and perform repetitive tasks, poor lighting can impact mood and energy levels, contributing to fatigue and drowsiness, which are key factors in accidents and injuries [5].

In addition, the lighting must be comfortable on the eyes with low glare and take into account the performance and wellbeing of the people who go to work there every day. High-quality industrial LED lighting has proven to be a robust solution, enhancing workers’ alertness and reducing fatigue [6]. And with proper design and light placement, it can produce the most v i b r a n t , c o m f o r t a b l e , l ow- g l a r e environment. 6. Customer communication. Often, because of proprietary equipment and operational data, customers are reluctant to share all of the files and information required to produce a high-quality lighting design. This can put the designer at a disadvantage, leaving them unable fully to account for all the conditions and forcing multiple design revisions. Sometimes customers will remove files from the drawing package because they’re unsure exactly what’s necessary. Designers must therefore be able to clarify and ask for exactly what’s needed and explain how this data is critical to the success of the project, while also being sensitive to the customers’ confidentiality concerns. While the situation may sound daunting, there is substantial opportunity for lighting designers to positively impact mine safety, productivity and profitability through innovative lighting design and technology. This is particularly important now, as the global mining industry works quickly to adapt to Covid-19 economic challenges and remain resilient [7]. Industrial LED lighting has become the most efficient, economic and durable lighting solution for mining applications, maximising facility safety, productivity and cost-effective operations. Not only is it the most efficient lighting source on the market, it is also the most resilient and long lasting, providing a safer, high-performance alternative to conventional HID lighting. But specifying industrial LED fixtures is only part of the equation. The lighting design, product selection and manufacturer you choose can have a substantial impact on project success and long-term customer satisfaction.

CONFIGURING MINING LIGHTING

When configuring industrial LED lighting designs for mining applications, designers should keep the following in mind. 1. Ask for the right information. Along with requesting all available amendable layout drawing and pictures from site, when designing for explosive environments the www.theilp.org.uk

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting harsh environments 4. Choose a specialised manufacturer. Because of the harsh environment and need for low-maintenance, high-durability fixtures, no off-the-shelf fixture will suffice. Many LED fixtures are not designed or equipped to withstand volatile conditions, making them prone to premature failure, ultimately costing more in the long run. Instead, choose specialised products from a manufacturer with a strong track record of durability in mining applications.

Figure 1. Illustration of the required electrical equipment labelling for hazardous areas. The key works as follows: (1) name of manufacturer; (2) product type code; (3) address of manufacturer; (4) year of manufacture; (5) marking in accordance with directive 2014/34/EU II 2 GD – group II location, category 2 equipment, for gas and dust hazards; (6) marking in accordance with European standards – built and tested to European standards, type of protection, explosion group, temperature class; (7) CE marking, together with notified body registration number; (8) notified testing body and reference number; (9) serial number; (10) technical data; and (11) ingress protection

client should provide all details about the hazards which may be encountered on site and how they are classified in compliance with standards and regulations. Lighting designers are not expected to be ATEX experts and the client should provide specialist advice on the type of hazards recorded on site. This also applies to emergency lighting, where applicable; the client should provide workplace emergency plans produced by a competent professional based on which the designer may make informed decisions on the type and location of lighting. If the customer is reluctant to share proprietary data, offer to sign a non-disclosure agreement to ensure that anything shared remains confidential. Starting off with thorough information can make the entire project go much smoother. 2. Specify ATEX-certified products. Because of the airborne dust, gases and other particulate matter, mining operations require hazardous location-certified fixtures to reduce the risk of explosion or combustion.

Be sure that you understand the risk in each specific area to be lit and specify products accordingly. This is a critical safety issue, and there’s absolutely no room for compromise in this area. Designers should ensure that the products they intend to specify are fitted with the required electrical equipment meant for hazardous areas and labelled containing the information shown in figure 1. 3. Choose durable products. Replacing damaged or burned-out fixtures often requires a production shutdown, which directly impacts profitability. When creating a design therefore, choose fixtures that are known for their resistance to shock and vibration and proven to perform well in harsh industrial applications. Many products carry a five-year warranty but the most durable are covered for ten years. While a more robust fixture may cost more initially, it will save the customer money and hassle by not having to replace a cheaper fixture more often.

5. Design around emergency/egress lighting, where required. Emergency evacuation paths must be well lit at all times, so the fixtures you specify must perform well in unexpected conditions. Consider how fixtures will be powered in the event of an outage and the maximum time of operation in those circumstances. Choosing the most efficient fixtures will ensure the longest possible operation, allowing safe exit for personnel. 7. Maximise light efficacy. Design a plan that leverages both light output (in lumens per watt) and optics for precise light placement to minimise the quantity of fixtures required. While you don’t want to skimp, obviously fewer fixtures will mean greater energy efficiency, lower upfront costs and less maintenance down the road.

CONCLUSION

Without a doubt, mine sites can be some of the most challenging industrial facilities and lighting them can be even more of a hurdle. Industrial LED lighting has become the technology of choice in mining for its durability, energy efficiency and low total cost of ownership. But before choosing just any LED fixture for mining applications, designers must be cautious to consider the durability, safety and longevity of fixtures and select high-quality products from a manufacturer with proven reliability in mining applications.

Simone Rossi is a senior lighting designer at Dialight Europe and is an affiliate member of the ILP

[1] Equipment for potentially explosive atmospheres (ATEX), European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/mechanical-engineering/atex_en [2] Standards documentation for purchase, International Electrotechnical Commission System for Certification to Standards Relating to Equipment for Use in Explosive Atmospheres, https://www.iecex.com/publications/standards/ [3] US Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Safety Council, from an internal analysis for Dialight Europe [4] Abdou O (1997). ‘Effects of Luminous Environment on Worker Productivity in Building Spaces’, Journal of Architectural Engineering, vol 3, issue 3, September 1997, available online at https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%2910760431%281997%293%3A3%28124%29 [5] Edwards L and Torcellini P (2002). ‘A Literature Review of the Effects of Natural Light on Building Occupants’, Technical Report, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, July 2002. Available online at: https:// www.nrel.gov/docs/fy02osti/30769.pdf [6] Falchi F et al (2011). ‘Limiting the impact of light pollution on human health, environment and stellar visibility’, Journal of Environmental Management, vol 92, issue 10, October 2011, pages 2714-2722. Available online at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030147971100226X [7] Mine 2020. Resilient and resourceful: PwC’s 17th annual review of global trends in the mining industry, PwC, https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ industries/energy-utilities-resources/publications/mine.html

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APRIL 2021

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DISTILLING YOUR SOLUTION

When we think of ‘Ex lighting’, or explosion-proof lighting, we might imagine it being for an offshore oil rig or petrochemical site. But a distillery can be an equally hazardous environment, as well as often open to the visiting public, making it imperative to be specifying and considering the right lighting solutions

By Emily Faulkner

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting for hazardous environments It stands to reason that all luminaires installed on site must comply to the classification of each area. This makes it imperative to specify the correct and most appropriate lighting in each instance.

SPECIFYING LIGHTING FOR DISTILLERIES

1. Consider LED The benefits of LED over older lighting technologies are well-documented but are especially relevant for distillery applications. This is for three reasons, all again very well-recognised within the industry, but nevertheless worth reiterating within the very specific environmental constraints of distilleries.

f you’re familiar with lighting for hazardous areas, you’ll know the luminaires for use in such environments are specially designed and certified for use in applications where there is a risk of explosion because of the presence of gas or dust. Typical applications that spring to mind here include offshore oil rigs or petrochemical sites. Another interesting and challenging application that is less often thought of, however, is the use of hazardous area lighting in distilleries. Nevertheless, the production of spirits, especially whiskey (or, in Scotland, whisky), involves several processes that can result in a potentially explosive atmosphere, including the release of vapour during distillation and storage. The correct selection of Ex lighting (or explosion-proof lighting) is therefore imperative to ensure site safety at the distillery. Distilleries are often found in older, quirky buildings which can, in turn, present a challenge. Furthermore, and perhaps unique among hazardous area environments, distilleries have a dual role. They are both a production area for the manufacture of spirits but also often a visitor attraction. When considering the requirements for lighting, distilleries must therefore do this with both uses in mind. Typical areas around a distillery

requiring hazardous area lighting will normally include (but are not limited to): • Grain warehouses. Within grain warehouses and silos there is always air, and the stored grain deposits layers of dust across surfaces. During loading and unloading operations, these layers can generate a dust cloud as particles are sucked up by the circulating air meaning they are commonly designated as a ‘Zone 21’ hazardous area. This is an area in which an explosive dust atmosphere is likely to occur in normal operation [1]. • Distillation areas. The production of alcohol uses heats of up to 70degC, and the vapour it gives off mean that distillation areas around the stills and mash tuns are designated as a ‘Zone 1’ hazardous area. This is an area in which an explosive gas atmosphere is likely to occur in normal operation. • Barrell storage areas. Vapour can also be present in barrel storage, where the whiskey is stored and allowed to mature. These areas are commonly classified as a ‘Zone 2’ hazardous area. This is an area in which an explosive gas atmosphere is not likely to occur in normal operation, but if it does occur, will only exist for a short time.

• Lifetime and maintenance. Providing it uses effective thermal management, an LED luminaire can offer a lifetime of 100,000+ operating hours. With many distilleries facing the challenge of maintaining their required levels of production, balanced with frequent visitor tours, reducing the level and frequency of maintenance is major benefit. • Energy costs. Reducing running costs is a common goal for most businesses, and LED luminaires help reduce energy costs by running far more efficiently than conventional lighting. This is beneficial to distilleries of all sizes but especially to smaller, independent distilleries. Production of whiskey is often considered to be a seasonal business, one where keeping costs down in the slower months is imperative. • Quality of light. Choosing an LED luminaire allows light quality to be improved, with LEDs capable of providing improved CRI and higher colour temperatures than conventional lighting, so drastically improving working conditions. With many distilleries also being used as a visitor attraction, LED luminaires also provide greater flexibility in tailoring the light for each area, depending on its use. While higher colour temperatures may be ideal for production areas, warmer colour temperatures may be better suited for areas of the distillery which are used as part of the visitor tours. 2. Consider aesthetics With distilleries often doubling up as tourist attractions, the general aesthetics of lighting in these environments is also important. This is both in terms of how the luminaire fits in with its environment and in the quality and visual impact of its light output. There are two key considerations to be thinking about here. www.theilp.org.uk

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting for hazardous environments

Raytec Zone 1 and Zone 2 ‘SPARTAN’ linear luminaires were installed throughout Torabhaig distillery on the Isle of Skye. The luminaires were given a bespoke white paint job to help them blend in with the aesthetics of the white panelled ceiling

• Physical appearance. Installing a luminaire that fits in with the architecture and design of the building is important to many distilleries, given that the overall look and feel of the building can represent the distillery’s brand image to those who visit it. The option to have the luminaires painted in bespoke colours can help them to blend in and be less intrusive, again adding to the aesthetics of the distillery/branding. A good example of this where we at Raytec have been involved is the Torabhaig distillery on the Isle of Skye, where we installed our ‘SPARTAN’ range of luminaires, but also colour-matched them to the wood panelling within the distillery. • Light output. As well as lighting playing an important functional role in the running of the distillery, it can also be used to draw attention to architectural features, or to add to the experience of visitors during tours of the distilleries. The iconic copper stills, for example, are often a focal point for many distilleries, so using warmer colour temperatures, or even coloured lenses, can help to add a deeper glow to the colour of the stills. Warmer colour temperatures can also make areas of the distillery more aesthetically pleasing for visitors. While it depends on the personal preference of each distillery, many therefore opt for luminaires with a lower Kelvin rating in some areas, such as barrel storage or tasting rooms, to www.theilp.org.uk

make them more inviting (while of course still being compliant with the hazardous area classification). Selecting a luminaire that provides this level of flexibility is an important consideration when specifying lighting for a distillery. 3. Consider ease of maintenance Specifying LED luminaires can help in reducing the frequency of maintenance required. But the way in which a manufacturer has designed the luminaire has a large impact on how easily maintenance can be carried out if it is required. There are again, two key considerations here. • Reducing downtime. It is self-evident that minimising downtime is crucial to the financial viability of distilleries. If the lighting fails, certain parts of the production process may be unable take place because to the health and safety risks to the workers and the visiting general public. This could have a detrimental impact on both the volume of production and the number of visitors the distillery can receive. Having a lighting solution that allows maintenance to be carried out quickly and easily on site ensures downtime is kept to a minimum. The key to this is to specify a luminaire that has a modular design and allows maintenance to be carried out onsite. If the luminaire is sealed, however, any on site maintenance will not be possible.

• Making easier access. Choosing an LED luminaire with a removable power supply unit (PSU) can help to make access for maintenance much easier. Luminaires such as, again, our SPARTAN high-power flood and highpower bay allow the PSU to be removed. This, in turn, means all the wiring and serviceable parts can be positioned in easy-to-access locations. It’s not hard to see the benefit of this in the context of a common application within larger distilleries: grain storage areas. These areas will usually have high bay luminaires mounted to (or suspended from) the ceiling of the storage building. With non-modular lighting installed, gaining access to the luminaire may require the grain to be removed before maintenance is carried out. This is, of course, a slow and costly process. On top of this, even if the luminaire can be accessed without needing to remove the grain, carrying out maintenance with the grain still below is risky; it could lead to it becoming contaminated if anything falls while maintenance is being carried out. In contrast, being able to mount the PSUs remotely means maintenance can be carried out at ground level (with no risk of contamination), and the grain does not have to be removed. Ultimately this means maintenance can be done quicker, at a lower cost and risk.

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Lighting for hazardous environments

A distillery’s iconic copper stills can be enhanced by using LED lighting around the still areas. Here, Raytec ‘SPARTAN’ linear luminaires can be seen at Teelings distillery in Ireland and (main image page 34) at Ardnahoe distillery on the Isle of Islay

4. Consider emergency lighting Clean fresh water contributes to each whiskey’s flavour. It is an essential ingredient of the distillation process and means distilleries are often located in hard-to-access locations, such as remote Hebridean islands where power cuts and longer outages can be more frequent. This, naturally, makes emergency back-up lighting an absolute necessity to maintain the safety of everyone on site and to provide back-up illumination in the event of a power outage. This is especially important to any distillery that is also open to the public. There are two main considerations to be thinking about here. • Duration and output. To ensure an emergency luminaire will provide back-up illumination for the required length of time, it is important to check the emergency duration when specifying. Consideration should be given to the level of light output the luminaire provides while operating in emergency mode. This is usually expressed as a percentage of the luminaire’s output in normal operation, and it is common for output to drop significantly when in emergency mode.

To use our SPARTAN range again as an example, the emergency luminaires in this range provide 25% light output for three hours as standard but can also offer up to 100% output for a shorter duration if required. The duration and intensity of output is often specific to individual applications, so this flexibility can be an important benefit. • Automated testing. Some manufacturers are now providing emergency luminaires that increase safety and reliability of emergency systems. These ‘intelligent’ systems provide emergency luminaires with a self-testing function that automatically cycles the emergency battery. This, in turn, helps to maintain the battery’s health and also measures its capacity to ensure the luminaire is operating at its optimum. This functionality reduces the requirement for manual intervention, while the inspection of emergency luminaires is also made easier. An LED indicator is used to communicate when the unit is going through a testing procedure and highlights the overall health status of the luminaire.

5. Consider lighting design Lighting design is another essential part of specifying lighting within distilleries. The nature of distilleries means walkways between hot stills need to be well lit and any pipes or other distillation equipment need to be clearly illuminated to maintain the safety of workers and the visiting public. For specifiers going through the initial design process with a clear brief in mind, a carefully thought-through lighting design will provide peace of mind that the final solution will achieve the required on site lighting goal, with no surprises at the point of commissioning. Without wanting to end on too much of a ‘plug’, at Raytec, for example, we offer clients a free lighting design service alongside our manufacturing services. This includes a 3D visual representation of the final lighting solution, with detailed lux levels and a true indication of lighting performance as well as one-to-one design support. In a challenging environment such as distillery lighting, we find this sort of end-to-end support is very much valued by clients.

[1] ‘Explosive atmospheres – classification of hazardous areas (zoning) and selection of equipment’, Health and Safety Executive, https://www.hse.gov.uk/fireandexplosion/zoning.pdf

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Emily Faulkner is a marketing executive at Raytec

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APRIL 2021

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GETTING FIT FOR THE FUTURE What should have been a relatively straightforward LED upgrade of a leisure centre in Wales proved more complicated because of, you’ve guessed it, the country being plunged into lockdown last year. But the results nevertheless herald a (hopefully) more positive future all round

By Liz Hudson

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Sports and interior lighting

las Madoc is a leisure centre with a story. The centre began life as a council-run facility and, with its huge family-friendly offering, quickly cemented itself as an essential presence within the local community. However, due to local government cuts and despite its popularity, the leisure centre was sentenced to closure in 2014. It was at this point that the community took matters into its own hands and formed a not-forprofit organisation to keep the leisure centre alive, and in December 2014 it was officially reopened by the Splash Community Trust, gifted to the community by Wrexham County Borough Council. Since the transfer of ownership, Plas Madoc Leisure Centre has gone from strength to strength, winning ‘Social Enterprise of the Year’ in the 2018 Social Business Wales Awards. A core ongoing goal for the Splash Community Trust is continuously to find ways to drive down costs and improve efficiency, yet without compromising on service, facilities or quality. This has seen it improving the heating systems and wave machines in the pool area but also working to upgrade its lighting. It was to achieve this goal that the team turned to Carbon Reduction Technology, largely because of its acquisition in early 2019 of the Waveguide light injection luminaire range. The leisure centre had installed several Waveguide luminaires at an earlier point in time and the team was keen to use the same technology throughout the rest of the building. Light injection luminaires, which are ultra-uniform and low glare, are particularly well suited to this sort of environment, as leisure centres tend to be full of shiny floors and surfaces as well as areas that require extremely even, shadowless illumination, such as squash courts. The client had three clear primary goals in mind at the outset of the project: 1. 2. 3.

Streamline operating costs Improve the aesthetic of the facility and the light quality in active areas Reduce its carbon footprint

WORKING AROUND COVID-19

Coronavirus, naturally, threw a major spanner in the works, as it did for most UK businesses in 2020, causing operational problems and shutting down activity. Lockdown landed smack bang in the middle of the Plas Madoc installation, halting forward progress while the centre closed to comply with government restrictions. Installation had begun in February 2020 and, to mitigate the pandemic’s impact, the Carbon Trust offered an automatic

The Plas Madoc team installed Waveguide luminaires throughout the centre following a successful trial in the sports hall. Opposite: custom blue filters were added to the luminaires lighting the pool area ceiling to give an outdoor feel

extension to its usually rigorously strict 12-week installation requirement. In the event, however, the project was not officially completed until last September, making Plas Madoc CRT’s longest single installation! Fortunately, we had already planned for the installation to be modular, with different zones inside the building being upgraded in a phased rollout. This was strategically designed to reduce as much impact on the day-to-day running of the centre as possible, which in normal times opens seven days a week. As well as disruption from lockdown restrictions preventing personnel from attending sites to survey, install or maintain, the Covid-19 pandemic also caused major supply chain issues, affecting manufacture, component sourcing, air freight, sea freight and customs. Following the first return-to-business last summer after the first lockdown, both the

centre and CRT had some adjusting to do in order to continue to rollout the upgrade safely and in a legally compliant manner. This began, as all things do, with a detailed risk assessment, action plan and policy documents. When we were ready to put the installation team back on site, Covid-safe procedures had to be followed to the letter to maintain the safety of the Plas Madoc staff, the general public and the install team. Of course, every cloud has a silver lining. The pandemic did provide a rare opportunity for our photographer to capture a totally empty facility post installation. Observing, of course, all Covid-safe guidelines and laws.

A MODULAR ROLLOUT

Despite the pandemic-related delays and pauses in installation once the centre was able to reopen its doors to members, there was no further forced closure before the project was completed. www.theilp.org.uk

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Sports and interior lighting

The newly illuminated climbing wall. The sports centre is a community hub and offers a huge range of sports and activities

CRT approaches almost all installations in a modular manner – a tactic designed to allow our clients to continue to operate safely and with as much capacity as possible whilst the installation is in progress. Unless a facility has regularly scheduled downtime sufficient to complete a retrofit, it’s usually unfeasible for a business to halt trading and shut down to accommodate a lighting upgrade. This modular approach, in fact, proved ideal for adapting to a Covid-safe install strategy. The centre was divided into zones, which were isolated, closed and reopened one by one. This had the added benefit that, even with manufacturing and freight delays, we could continue to upgrade areas in full with the assets we had, leaving the original lighting temporarily in place in the zones affected by delays. This all ensured the lights stayed on and the leisure centre remained functional and safe for members.

SPOTLIGHT AREAS

The centre has an extensive range of facilities and spaces, including a soft play area, climbing wall, swimming pool, gym, sports hall, fitness class space, café, squash courts, offices, changing rooms, staff areas and common areas. All interior spaces required a lighting refit, plus the exterior of the building using the pre-existing poles. Leisure centres present a variety of lighting challenges and interesting or complex www.theilp.org.uk

spaces, all of which require slightly different approaches to achieve the best results. We’ll look at some of these different areas in turn. 1. Squash courts. Squash courts are a particularly interesting space to light, as a large area of the court – including the floor and most of the walls – is playable area and needs to be evenly lit to provide excellent visibility of the ball, which is only about 40mm in diameter and can move at well over 100 miles per hour! As you might imagine, it’s also vital for squash court luminaires to be smash proof. Fortunately, the structure of Waveguide luminaires is particularly well-suited to lighting a broad area, not just below the luminaire but to the sides and, to a degree, above where required. The luminaire is projecting light to the sides and above the fitting, rather than just in a downwards direction. We turned the outer tubes in the fitting to project out and up. Light is injected into flawless acrylic rods, which act as mixing chambers and project exceptionally low glare and uniform illumination. The shape and spread of the illumination is controlled by a precise reflective coating applied to the rod. The luminaires are made up of multiple rods and, by twisting the outer rod in the luminaire, we were able effectively to light the upper walls and corners of the courts without the need to install additional lights fittings.

2. Swimming pool. Plas Madoc has a large pool area, complete with water slides. This area came with a special request to light the roof area blue, so as to simulate the sky and give the area a more outdoor feel. A high lighting standard is also critical in areas such as swimming pools to properly support safety. The deep end of the swimming pool was the only area where we added a small number of additional luminaires, as the previous lighting design didn’t provide sufficient scope for us to achieve even enough lighting. To achieve the required blue lighting effect, we adapted the luminaires with custom blue Perspex filters. 3. Spiral staircase. The centre has a spiral staircase in the reception area, which was added on to the project in a later stage. The staircase was originally lit with eight spotlights, running at 300w each. During the course of the upgrade, these lights were removed, leaving gaps in the ceiling where the fixtures had been situated. Although the staircase was safely lit by the new lighting layout, CRT and the Plas Madoc team decided to put in new high-efficiency luminaires to showcase the staircase. Eight new custom spotlights were therefore installed, running at 14w each, with the emphasis on aesthetic. 4. Emergency lighting. In addition to retrofitting the lighting throughout the entire Plas Madoc facility, we also

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Sports and interior lighting The gym area. The low glare light injection approach of Waveguide technology works well for these sort of high occupancy areas

installed a new emergency lighting system. Emergency lighting is of course a legal requirement, and requires the installation of drivers and battery packs into luminaires at strategic points along escape routes. These are designed to trigger automatically in the event of an onsite power failure.

RESULTS

Let’s gauge the results for this project on three measures: performance, light quality and financial. 1. Performance. While the management team identified several key goals for the upgrade, the primary objective was to achieve a significant reduction in energy expenditure. To that end: • Tonnes of CO2 saved per year: 36 tonnes • Sitewide energy saving: 78% • Energy saving in kwh: 127,000kwh (reduced from 163000kwh to 36000kwh) • Average reduction in wattage per luminaire: taken as an average across the whole site, we reduced power by 107w for every luminaire 2. Light quality. A key concern for Plas Madoc was improving the light quality and

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aesthetic. Generally speaking, a busier, more modular floorplan and part-time operating hours can reduce the savings potential when compared to, say, a manufacturing facility. For Plas Madoc, as a leisure centre, it was able to recoup some of these savings by opting for a high colour temperature, which is very much standard in the leisure industry. The management team also opted not to have the lighting scheme layout altered for maximum efficiency, although we were still able to achieve a 9% reduction in lighting fixtures. The light quality changes were: • •

Colour temperature: 5000K Lux levels: Approximately a 30% improvement

3. Financial. Despite Plas Madoc having only part-time operating hours, the savings and paybacks have been impressive. The centre is set to recoup the cost of the project through energy savings in just 34 months; as the payback term with the Carbon Trust is five years. This means Plas Madoc will see an immediate saving on its bottom line on a monthly basis, even with its finance commitment. As we expect our luminaires to last in excess of 20 years, the leisure centre will be enjoying the financial benefits of its

upgrade for a long time to come. In more detail, the savings amount to: • Operating hours: eight to 12 hours per day, seven days per week • Payback: 34 months • Carbon Trust payback: five years

CONCLUSIONS

The Plas Madoc Leisure Centre and Splash Community Trust team were a genuine pleasure to work with, driven, as they are, by an extraordinary group of people with a strong sense of vision and a firm grasp on making energy efficiency work. Coronavirus continues to make times feel turbulent and uncertain for most small and medium-sized businesses, but as we, hopefully, now start to come out of the pandemic, the government’s renewed commitments to cutting and neutralising carbon emissions means there will be an ever-greater imperative for businesses of all sizes to be finding ways to reduce carbon footprint, with more energy efficient lighting one important option.

Liz Hudson is head of marketing at EW Business Development & Marketing, and works with Carbon Reduction Technology

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

STORY-TELLING, BRILLIANTLY

After Covid-19 put paid to 2020’s ‘How to be brilliant’, the ILP’s informal and friendly series of talks has returned in a new digital format for 2021

By Nic Paton

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

How to be brilliant

he ILP’s popular ‘How to be brilliant’ talks, which were held in London and Scotland, were one of the casualties of coronavirus last year. One year on, we may not quite be out of the pandemic, even if the success of the vaccine rollout and the government’s route map out of restrictions does means hopes are rising for a gradual return to something approaching ‘normality’. But the fact we have all got so used to engaging, networking and collaborating virtually over the past year meant that ‘How to be brilliant’ was finally able to return in a digital format last month, thanks to a sponsorship agreement with ILP Premier member BEGA.

PASSIONATE PRESENTATION

The first in what will be a series of talks during 2021 (and keep an eye on the ILP website for updates) was by David Gilbey, founder of d-lighting, on ‘how to be brilliant at telling stories with light’. In a passionate and thought-provoking presentation, David cantered through projects that had inspired him over the years and why, within this, it was vital for designers, whatever their level, always to be finding the ‘narrative’ of a project, always to be telling the story of the space and the light within it and not getting bogged down in numbers, values or calculations. ‘I am absolutely burning with passion for light and lighting, and I have been following the light all my life. What we aim to do with light is inspire, and the great inspiration, for me, is nature,’ David enthused. He highlighted the Batu Caves in

Malaysia, which even have a Hindu temple inside them. ‘That light is almost spiritual; it is almost, “what came first, the light or the temple?”. We know it would have been the light of course, but what a great shot.’ He focused on the Highcross shopping centre in Leicester, a project he had worked on with Foreign Office Architects. ‘I love this project. It proves to me that the limits to creativity are not the budget, the limiters to creativity are the ideas.’ Canterbury Cathedral told a very interesting ‘story’ in terms of light because of its location. ‘It sits in a dip and it appears to be overlit. It is lit like a beacon, but it is lit to call you to prayer,’ David explained. A combination of constellations of stars and dynamic illuminated shooting stars were at the heart of UMAYA Lighting Designs’ work on the Prime Tower in Dubai. ‘We started mapping out the building so we had a diagonal line of light to accent the shooting star,’ he explained. ‘When we were planning the constellations, we had no way of making the stars twinkle – we did not have any control on the outside of the building – so we had to use an optical illusion. We used a dark blue LED node and sort of cyan blue/turquoise blue and cool white; and that gave you the illusion that the stars were twinkling on the building.’

FIVE KEY CONSIDERATIONS

David then outlined what, to him, were his top five considerations to be thinking about when lighting the outside of buildings:

1. 2.

Make them look good from afar. ‘We all do that anyway as lighting designers.’ Make them look good as you approach. ‘We have also got to make the experience realistic and engaging as you approach the building.’ Make it in context to the surroundings. ‘You may be doing a deliberate contrast. I lit the entrance to a risqué art gallery in Moscow and we made it look like a brothel. But here we are sitting very comfortably in context.’ Try and create local landmarks. ‘Try and create buildings that people are proud of, and which become waypoints.’ All the sustainable elements. ‘Energy efficiency, no light pollution, ergonomic elements, easy to maintain and so on.’

David added: ‘If you can tick these five boxes when lighting a façade, you are doing a great job.’ But he also warned: ‘With light we can tell stories. But if we get it wrong, we can also confuse. ‘As lighting designers, we have to use every tool in our armoury to tell a story when it is appropriate. Sometimes it is just about being bold with your lighting, or contrast,’ David continued. ‘The “story” can be history, culture or location; it can be anything. It can be the architecture, sustainability, branding. But what you do when you try and tell the story is try to capture the soul of a project; you try and connect the project in space and time. www.theilp.org.uk

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

How to be brilliant Canterbury Cathedral. In his 'How to be brilliant' talk, David Gilbey explained how the cathedral's location in a dip is integral to its lighting 'story'. Main image on previous page: Lazarides Gallery in London (photograph by Yvette Jones) and Wafi City Mall in Dubai, both projects by David

‘As lighting designers, we have to keep ourselves interested and interesting. Our degrees are just a line in the sand, a mark in time, we have to keep researching and growing our knowledge. There are always learning opportunities on projects’, he added.

LIGHTING’S ROLE IN REGENERATION

David emphasised the importance of biophilic design and how lighting can be a key element that drives forward an urban regeneration project, highlighting the exemplary work by Kai Piippo on a dry dock area near Gothenburg. ‘With that comes prosperity. It’s like putting a stone in a pond and it ripples out. If you can regenerate an area, the area next door has got to regenerate and so on,’ he said. ‘I love how we can take ugly objects and turn them into landmarks, turn them into waypoints, turn them into part of the community with interactive light,’ he added. ‘It is just about thinking outside the box, and how we can use light as a celebration. How we can use light to frame, how we use light to accentuate, how we aim to add value with light. His work on the Chhatrapati Shivaji Mumbai International Airport T2, where the Jaya He Museum comprises 3km of www.theilp.org.uk

ancient Indian heritage art over four floors, remains his favourite architectural project, David explained. There were many stories to tell, including the spiritual light of ‘Godhuli’, which is the golden light reflected in the dust kicked up by the cows coming home from the fields; there were birds that fly, fish that swim and many spiritual elements, he outlined. ‘I hope you find this inspiring,’ David concluded. ‘To me, telling stories with light is the way I approach things; it is the way architects approach projects. And I think you will all be better designers if you take a little bit of inspiration from the present.’

FIND OUT MORE

To watch the full video from David’s presentation go to https://theilp.org.uk/ events/how-to-be-brilliant/ The next ‘How to be brilliant talk’ will take place on 10 May and will be by artist Liz West, on ‘How to be brilliant at celebrating colour’. Keep an eye on the ILP digital newsletter plus go to https://theilp.org.uk/events/ for updates on Liz’s talk as well as upcoming ‘How to be brilliant’ events. Our thanks to Premier member BEGA for sponsoring the sessions.

DO YOU KNOW AN UNSUNG HERO?

During the past year many within lighting have gone above and beyond to help those who are vulnerable or in need in their communities. They don’t do it for the praise or the applause, but simply because they care and want to help people in need. But we at Lighting Journal think they could do with celebrating and applauding. So, if you know someone within lighting who is an unsung hero in their community, or even if you are yourself, we’d love to hear from you. Perhaps they’re raising money for charity, delivering food parcels, or volunteering to vaccinate and test. Whatever it is, if you know someone who you think deserves a bit of a shout out for all they do and contribute beyond their lighting ‘day job’, please get in touch. Either drop a line direct to Jess Gallacher at the ILP at Jess@theilp.org.uk or come straight to editor Nic Paton at nic@cormorantmedia.co.uk

APRIL 2021

S TEIOM I NS L AT CAREGUL I R EEE

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SERVICE ECONOMY? Lighting has come a long way in terms of recycling and reuse, but there is still much that needs to improve across all electrical industries. Lighting as a service and product leasing schemes may all, for example, need to become more commonplace in the future

By Bryony Light and Alex Brothwood

his coming November the UK will host the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which new US climate envoy John Kerry has called the world’s ‘last best chance’ to avert climate catastrophe. A key, and increasingly urgent, part of the climate change discussion is resource depletion. This is an area where it is vital all of us within the lighting industry work to achieve and maintain standards of compliance; that we prioritise responsible conservation of the environment, ensure less plastic is used, that rare materials are not lost, and that as much as possible is recycled or reused.

INDO Lighting is committed to manufacturing products that are more sustainable, using high-quality materials and components, making them much easier to recycle at treatment facilities and allowing better quality ‘recyclets’ to be recovered and sold back into the supply chain.

LEGAL RECYCLING OBLIGATION

Furthermore, INDO products are ‘Direct Drive’, which means there is no driver. This results in units that not only are easier to treat and recycle but means end-users don’t need to pay for the replacement of expired drivers midway through a unit’s lifetime or

oversee an additional waste obligation. As most lighting professionals will probably be aware, there is also a legal obligation here. The lighting supply chain must ensure all lighting is treated and disposed of correctly by approved recycling facilities. Manufacturers placing more than five tonnes of electronic goods on the market per year have to join a producer compliance scheme (PCS) to manage this obligation on their behalf. Within UK street lighting, Lumicom is the largest PCS operating, and has the majority of manufacturers in the UK as active members. The scheme is well-established in the

APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting and recycling market, with the team working in partnership with contractors, street lighting manufacturers and their recycling partners to provide an end-to-end, fully traceable, recycling service. Importantly, by using a PCS, manufacturers can have peace of mind that they have the correct paperwork in place to be compliant under ISO 14001 and the Waste Directive 2011. However, this kind of ‘bread and butter’ recycling, while important, is just part of the wider environmental conversations we now need to be having within the industry. As was highlighted in Lighting Journal last month (‘Green governance’, vol 86 no 3), the government plans later this year to consult on reforms to the WEEE waste and recycling regulations. The likelihood is this will close some of the loopholes (for example products sold through online marketplaces) and opt-outs that some businesses are currently able to take advantage of.

USE OF ‘FOREVER CHEMICALS’

So, the landscape is already changing. Within this, there is a further issue in lighting manufacture around the use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). POPs are sometimes known as ‘forever chemicals’, and are organic compounds resistant to environmental degradation and are classified as hazardous waste. In street lighting, POPs waste is seen in the form of brominated flame-retardant plastic (which is used in a lot of electronic equipment). Bromine doesn’t break down naturally and has to be removed from the supply chain completely. However, the track record of the industry when it comes to POPs is actually very positive. Lumicom has researched and tested 75 variants of luminaire dating back from the 1970s to the modern day and found bromine levels well below the threshold limit (1,000 parts per kilo) across all samples. To that end, Lumicom was instrumental in alerting the government to this fact and having street lighting reclassified as non-hazardous’. It is in fact the only electrical category (other than refrigerators) to be so classified. Declassifying street lighting waste as hazardous in this way offers the practical benefit of reducing the cost of collections. Collecting POPs waste is significantly more expensive to transport, and subsequently treat, per tonne. On collection alone, for example, hazardous transport permits are required in addition to a hazardous waste consignment note for each load, which can cost up to £60 per collection. This would be a considerable cost that would have to be passed back to the producer. As was also recently highlighted in Lighting Journal, (‘Squaring the circular’, January

2021, vol 86, no 1), the idea of the ‘circular economy’ is gaining traction, and widescale acceptance, within the industry. Ideally, recycling through a waste stream should be the last option when a product reaches the end of its useful life, after remanufacturing, reusing and repurposing parts; be that for upgrades to the same product or as components for new products or new markets.

NEW ‘TAKE-BACK’ SCHEMES?

Moving to a more circular economy at the moment, however, is a stage that is currently missing for many within the industry, and something that needs added focus, discussion and action if we all want to move forward to effect real environmental change. As time goes on, and debate in this area intensifies, there will be pressure on public spending to incorporate additional steps into product design, client specifications and asset management plans to reflect these changes. Ultimately, more product will need to come back to the manufacturer to reuse and repurpose the parts, quite possibly under various ‘take-back’ schemes such as offering lighting as a service, or a product leasing business model. We’re already seeing this evolution happen in other industries and sectors. For example, broadcaster Sky leases its box rather than selling it to the customer. This way Sky retains ownership and can easily manage refurbishment, reuse, parts-harvesting or recycling.

Or, similarly, HP’s ‘Instant Ink’ subscription service allows for new print cartridges to be sent out and old ones returned by Freepost to be reused or taken down to component parts. The likelihood is that a similar evolution may start to be seen in lighting and lighting manufacture.

CONCLUSIONS

Technological and regulatory shifts within this space are, it is clear, imminent. Lighting has come a long way in terms of recycling, but there is still much that needs to improve across all electrical industries. This is an area where you can never afford to sit still. For example, at INDO we are currently reviewing the recycling position for our horticultural lighting business, as we recognise this is a commercial lighting sector that needs to address these critical issues as we head into a new era of using LED lighting for more sustainable food production. With climate change and environmental responsibility becoming so critical for future generations, it is essential that manufacturing companies – lighting manufacturers included – change their mindset and be more consistent about reuse, repurposing, harvesting, recycling and waste. We all need to accept and account for this change within our business, just like any other ‘cost of sales’ entry on the profit and loss statement. Bryony Light is marketing manager at INDO Lighting and Alex Brothwood is business manager at Lumicom

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APRIL 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting and Covid-19

‘PERSO’ AND PERSEVERENCE

ith the UK gradually unlocking and the Covid-19 vaccine rollout continuing apace, we can but hope that we’re now entering the endgame of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, even if Covid-19 moves from being a public health crisis to something more manageable, an endemic disease a bit like measles or flu that we simply have to live with (and regularly vaccinate against), the NHS will still need to be caring for people with the virus. As we’ve seen throughout the past year, the lighting industry has been using its high-precision manufacturing skills and supply chain expertise to play its part in supporting NHS workers. Regular readers of Lighting Journal may recall that last summer we spoke to Rebecca Hatch, ILP VP Infrastructure and managing director of Southampton-based INDO Lighting about the story behind its development of an innovative hood-based respirator device for NHS frontline staff (‘Quality care commission’, June 2020, vol 85 no 6). At the time, the ‘PeRSo’ device, which had been developed with the University of Southampton, and clinicians at University Hospital Southampton had been approved for local use in a number of Hampshire and south coast trusts.

REGULATORY APPROVAL

Gaining wider regulatory approval has proved a slow process but, as Tom Baynham, INDO chair, recently updated Lighting www.theilp.org.uk

Journal, the two variants of the device, the PeRSo 1 and PeRSo 3, have now been approved for wider use across the NHS. As he explains: ‘The PeRSo 1 is an entrylevel, low-cost, high-volume product that we are manufacturing in its entirety in Southampton using our UK supply chains. The PeRSo 3, by comparison, was a quick-tomarket redesign of a hood, filter and turbo unit that were already in use and which we simply adapted at speed, for use during the first wave of the Covid pandemic last year.’ The PeRSo 3 quickly received Health and Safety Executive approval for use in healthcare as well as the dental sector, and was the device highlighted in our original article last summer. The more complex iteration, the PeRSo 1, has now also received its CE certification. Tom takes up the story. ‘The PeRSo 1 is currently (as of March) finishing its fulltype approval; so BSI is now signing it off. We are starting to have conversations with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care and various other bodies around the UK to roll it out for use. ‘We’re also doing a project with Southampton University to upgrade the hood system to make it a medical device as well. That means it would protect not just the wearer from those around them, but those around them if the wearer was infected.’ Another advantage of the device is the fact that it makes communication that much easier with patients who rely on lip reading, he adds.

Given that, of course, the pandemic is a global health crisis, INDO has also been looking at the use of the devices within international markets, including working with some hospitals in Africa as well as other countries.

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE

Ultimately, this success story (so far) shows how lighting – lighting professionals, lighting manufacturers and ILP members across the board – have successfully risen to the challenge of the pandemic. As Tom explains: ‘At INDO, as well as designing and manufacturing fixtures, one of our core areas of expertise is in electronic engineering; we knew we had the skillset that could help – and that was essentially what was needed the most in this project. ‘We needed to design something that could detect low flow rates. You have air being filtered and delivered in through the hood system but, in order to comply with the standards, if the hose gets trapped, cut or damaged, the system needs to be able to detect that that has happened. The electronics therefore needed to be able to detect blockages or low flow rates; and all that had to be developed from scratch. ‘So, it was very much about using our electrical expertise and then, from there, knowing where to go to get the various elements designed, manufactured and incorporated into the product. But it has been a hugely worthwhile and rewarding project to be involved in,’ says Tom.

Lighting

Lighting Journal April 2021

Articles inside

BED-TIME READING

x SERVICE ECONOMY?

STORY-TELLING, BRILLIANTLY

i‘CE’ THE DIFFERENCE

x ‘PERSO’ AND PERSEVERENCE