Roundtable debate Lighting efficiency
need simple systems that are manageable by all. We have oversold [controls] and we need to start again,’ said Draper. Trent argued that providing simple automated messages to a building’s users, such as ‘your lights were left on last night’, is one of the simple but effective uses that controls can be put to. One problem, he added, was that no one is doing ‘really good research’ on lighting controls. Meyrick asked: ‘How can we get those exemplar projects for all sectors out there, so that people can see, that whatever amount of money you want to spend, it’s worth it?’
> If you want
to drive down energy for lighting in the next decade or two it’s got to come from your existing buildings
looking to radically reduce lighting’s carbon footprint, we’d have to look to natural light as the solution, alongside more energy efficient lamps and renewables, he added. ‘We’re not going to make any fundamental changes unless we say that natural light is the way,’ he said.
Topic three Are the benefits of lighting controls being under-recognised? Fitting controls can be key to ensuring that lighting is used more efficiently, but achieving user satisfaction is the most difficult aspect of controls, said Ridler: ‘If you get a control system that does not deliver for users, they simply turn it off!’ Controls technology is written by software
developers and driven by the technology, and this presents problems when it comes to usability for building occupants, said Trent: ‘That’s why we’ve got very expensive systems in buildings that are lit up like Christmas trees at night.’ Addressing the question ‘what are controls for?’, Trent said simply: ‘To deliver the right amount of light at the right time.’ Users want to be able to influence their local area,
said Sutherland: ‘We saw ventilation controls as something that controlled everything for everybody some years ago, but we then realised that, actually, we had taken too much control away from people, who didn’t feel comfortable anymore because they did not have enough control of their environment.’ He added: ‘We need both building-wide energy
management and local control – a light switch for every workstation.’ However, he said, relying on controls can mean designers feeling that ‘it’s solved’. It’s much more important to get both lighting and natural daylight right. For a radical change in lighting’s carbon footprint,
we need to think about how we ‘plan buildings from the ground up’, said Barker-Field, who stressed the role of better daylight: ‘Controls are a response to better daylit buildings.’ Despite the payback on investment that controls can
provide through lower energy usage, they are often pushed out of specifications to cut costs, it was felt. Moreover, both the developer and the tenant/user have historically viewed them an ‘evil’ because they haven’t worked or been at all user-friendly. ‘We therefore
30 CIBSE Journal September 2010
Topic four So how do we radically reduce lighting’s carbon footprint? ‘Design may save you but technology won’t,’ said Barker-Field. ‘The broad-ranging discussion we’ve had shows that it’s a complicated area we’re dealing with – behavioural psychology, architecture, building services – how you link all those things together. How do you get better [lighting] design into that process? Getting the right people doing the design is the biggest opportunity [ for low carbon lighting].’ ‘If you want to drive down energy for lighting in
the next decade or two, it’s got to come from your existing buildings,’ Tulla said. ‘And you’ll do that with a technology refurb,’ responded Sutherland, ‘but then you have to turn the lighting off.’ ‘You need to drive daylight as being the primary lighting source,’ said Ridler. Meyrick added: ‘In my view, any daylight is better than no daylight at all, and that’s what the great architects of the past absolutely knew.’ Overall, the group felt that a combination of
improved legislation, lower lighter levels, more efficient technology and effective and usable controls provided some of the answers. But they agreed that the root of the problem also lay in the lack of a ‘holisitic’ approach to the designing and specifying of lighting for new builds and refurbishments. l The edited video of this discussion can be found with the September issue online at
www.cibsejournal.com
From the sponsor: Lutron
Lutron Electronics is the leading designer and manufacturer of lighting controls and architectural lighting control systems for residential, commercial and institutional applications. Lutron offers more than 15,000 products — from single-room dimmers to comprehensive architectural systems that operate lighting throughout an entire building and can control virtually any lamp source. Lutron is committed to helping its customers find ways to save energy and leads the industry in controlling energy efficient light sources. Full-range dimming is now possible for a wide range of fluorescent lamp types. The trend toward LED lighting for accent and general lighting is growing, and Lutron is there to control it all.
www.cibsejournal.com
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