ENERGY
FITTING LOW-ENERGY LIGHT DO WE YET HAVE A GREEN LI
Tony Baldwinson, Project Manager, North West Construction Knowledge Hub
Frankland and installed at the CUBE Building, Portland Street, Manchester, by hosting a lively debate on Green Lighting which was opened and chaired by Fred Talbot, the television presenter, and sponsored by the Manchester Light and Stage Company.
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The panel debate explored green lighting options and new lighting technologies; in particular solid state lighting, and it highlighted the potential energy benefits and therefore financial savings as well as enabling a significant reduction of carbon emissions.
ASK THE EXPERTS
The expert panel, guided by Tony Baldwinson from the Centre for Construction Innovation, was made up of Sian Astley, an independent property developer, Natalie Gray, an interior designer at NoChintz, Brendan Keely, Associate Lighting Designer at BDP, and Paul Stephenson, Managing Director of lighting manufacturer Clearvision which specialises in artificial daylight. Each panel member gave a short "elevator pitch" on their approach to low-energy lighting, after which they had some general questions posed before opening the discussion to the audience of construction professionals for the wider debate. As Sian Astley noted in her blog afterwards: “My position on low energy lighting is this: my house is full of low energy bulbs and I’m forever turning unused lamps off to save energy (fuelled originally by the dim 70’s memory of those TurnItOff stickers next to light switches), I’d love to specify light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, but my interior contracts are not multi-million pound mansions with £30k budgets for lighting and whenever I have tried to spec it, like behind a beam on one of my rentals, the quote was £100 per metre! Kelly Hoppen doesn’t have these issues! So, I wanted to hear the latest on LEDs and I wanted the
34| SUSTAINABLE FM | JUNE 2010
he North West Construction Knowledge Hub recently (23 March 2010) marked the launch of the ‘Brighter Futures' exhibition, created by Richard
latest to be that there’d be a lot more info and a lot less cost. We waste so much stuff, so much energy and it makes me, I’m trying to think of the right word… uncomfortable.”
The accompanying exhibition of new
low-energy lights included one of the first LED street lights in Manchester, which is dimmable and at full power only consumes 84 watts. The exhibition also displays the range of existing lighting, from incandescent bulbs to fluorescent tubes, with graphics to show their relative strengths. This exhibition will stay open for the coming months, for CUBE Seminar delegates to enjoy as they take their refreshment breaks from the meeting area next door.
KEY LESSONS Perhaps the key point for FM is that
low-energy lighting has a very quick payback period or return on investment. It is one of the few areas where the running costs vastly outweigh the capital costs for all but the most new and novel types of lighting. And some solutions such as high pressure Sodium lamps are good for low energy as well as being tried and tested. The two concerns expressed by professions with some of the newer types of low-energy lighting, and especially LEDs, were firstly that there is a lack of standards in the specification and marketing (what does “equivalent to 60w” on a box actually mean, because instead you need to know the lumens and the colour-balance of the light), and secondly because of a lack of quality assurance and international standards for LEDs in particular, many of the products being sold are imported without even a CE mark for sale within the EU.
RECENT EXAMPLES From the audience at the event, there was some interesting sharing of experiences. One delegate has recently specified the replacement lighting for a refit of the University of Manchester campus library and for a students’ hall of residence. His analysis of the payback economics decided that LED lights were
fitted to the ground floor of the library, which has a 24/7 usage, but not elsewhere currently where usage levels were less hours each day.
The University of Manchester also operate another library building off- campus in the city centre for old and rare books, built in the 1800s as a beautiful library in memorial by Enriqueta Rylands, the wife to a philanthropic cotton merchant John Rylands. This building is said to have been one of the first in Manchester to be fitted with electric lights, and as its custodians the university are now looking to introduce LED lights using the same look as the original bulbs. So, an example of low-energy lighting at both ends of the building spectrum, each being a book-end (sorry!).
Another delegate was advising a major retail chain (let’s just say there is no Plan B…) who are looking to introduce low-energy lighting throughout their estate, but again facing the issues around quality and consistency, but also the capabilities of designers and contractors to fit out the shops with newer lighting technologies.
An academic delegate, this time from Manchester Metropolitan University, shared the findings of his work on lighting and its emotional connections to how we feel about a building or a wider place. His work includes cities which have Festivals of Light, towns like Blackpool where the illuminations are a major part of the identity of the place, and also what some call the “bonkers Christmas lights” that people enjoy covering their houses with, which often bring a lot of pleasure and delight to people of all ages as well as children.
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