LIGHTING SPECIAL BUILDING REGULATIONS
A BRIGHT NEW DAWN? I
Next year sees the release of the latest Part L regulations. Liz Peck outlines the proposed changes, which could see a major leap forward in lighting energy effi ciency
n March 2012, the consultation on the proposals for Part L of the Building Regulations for 2013 was released and,
for most involved in lighting, there was rejoicing that the government had listened to our calls for change. I have been among many
who have condemned previous incarnations of Part L – the loopholes enabled effi cient lamps to be used in completely ineffi cient luminaires, and luminaires to be left on all night in unoccupied buildings, as long as the luminaire itself was effi cient. We argued that effi cient lighting,
by defi nition, met the demands of the users in terms of comfort, lighting level and, crucially, suitable control, so that it was dimmed or switched off when not required. Not rocket science you might think, but a harder case to argue than you might imagine. But with understanding came agreement and compromise. The March consultation paper then outlined the government’s plan for lighting in non-domestic buildings from 2013 and there were changes – big changes, and for the better. Previously, areas have been described
as ‘desk-based’, ‘display’ and, well, ‘everything else’, and other than desk- based activities, the metric has been lamp-lumen effi cacy. This meant that it did not matter how ineffi cient a luminaire was – as long as the lamp was effi cient then it complied. This has been removed and we now
have luminaire effi cacy for everything. This in itself is real progress and should not be overlooked. Away with those ubiquitous ‘black box’ luminaires with their effi cient lamps – now manufacturers must deliver effi cient luminaires.
While this is generally a good thing,
if effi ciency was the only driver in delivering good, sustainable lighting solutions, we’d have low pressure sodium or bare batten T5 lamps in every offi ce, hospital and school in the country. Thankfully it is not, and although producing metrics (let alone targets) for user comfort and a good working environment has challenged the experts for years, we can rely on the designers to deliver these environments in an effi cient way, and the secret to this is often controls. The proposed move away from occupancy and daylight controls as the only deliverable and measured controls is a huge step forward; the controls package can now deliver up to 30% reduction on the original luminaire effi cacy. In other words, there’s no excuse
not to use the right luminaires for the application, just make sure they are controlled properly. We don’t need to have a situation where inappropriate luminaires get specifi ed because of their effi cacy, because we can use whichever luminaire we like (within reason) and control it. The most effi cient luminaire is the one that is off when it is not needed, and the new controls package drives this very positively. The consultation actually outlined two
options for lighting compliance: aside from the luminaire effi cacy (with or without controls), there is also a proposal to adopt LENI (Lighting Energy Numeric Indicator) as the metric of energy use for the future. The lighting industry has campaigned
hard and loud to introduce LENI into the Building Regulations. In itself it is just a measure, but the philosophy behind it makes it different. It measures predicted energy in use – not how effi cient a luminaire is, hopefully with its new set of controls – actual, real, predicted
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December 2012 CIBSE Journal 17
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