The Truth About Energy Efficient Lighting

Lighting can use a significant quantity of the electricity employed in the running of an organisation, and this is often as much as 50% of the total demand contingent on building type and use.

In night time hours it is standard to see buildings with no energy efficient lighting, running all of their lights on even though there’s minimal or no occupancy within the specific rooms. Additionally in daylight periods the same fittings will more than likely be turned on in the morning and rarely go off till the cleaner goes home after hours with no regard for the need for power consumption. The advent of open plan office areas also suggests major areas of buildings are controlled in a uniform way with no deference to the background light levels or occupancy.

We have witnessed each single light fitting on in an un-occupied space (which also increases the heat load of the room, which in its turn increases the load online Conditioning or Chiller systems that has to work harder to keep the room cool thus using more un-necessary electricity)

So what can be done as the standard notices saying “please switch off the lights” seem to have little effect in certain environments?

The only answer is to remove the human part with the installation of automatic controls that recognise the occupancy levels within the work space and adjust the lighting provision to suit. This is going to be as easy as a retro-fit to existing fittings, or a new installation of “smart” fittings that will not only take occupancy into account, but will also make allowance for the natural light levels and adjust the light fitting output to achieve the specified illuminance thus reducing further the electric consumption.

Not all existing fittings will be acceptable for retro-fit of controls but if a replacement scheme is realistic and the fittings correctly specified the payback of investment can be as low as 12 to 18 months while also achieving important reductions in CO2.

Electricity will, unfortunately, only get dearer and the drive must be to get consumers to reduce their demand and this suggests that Energy efficient lighting is a straightforward most important step in reaching this goal.

Mathew Fear has been and authority in the energy efficient lighting industry for over a decade and has many tips you can view at his company web site www.EnergyEfficientLights.com.au/