LEISURE & HOSPITALITY
SHINING A LIGHT ON THE JOURNEY TO LED
Before the end of 2015 the John Lewis Partnership will have installed over 110,000 LED lights into its estate. Working with Philips, GE and Edge Lighting, the engineering and sustainability teams have helped to shape and drive progress in LED lighting for the retail sector over the past four years, here, they tell us more about the process.
In 2010 the John Lewis Partnership began a programme to reduce its carbon emissions. At that time store lighting in Waitrose accounted for approximately 25% of the total electricity costs of a branch, so it started to look seriously at LED lighting as a way of increasing efficiency. Following a rigorous four-year programme of research, in-store testing and evaluation, the Partnership is now committed to the installation of LED lighting in every new building and the progressive replacement of traditional lighting with LED in all existing buildings. By the end of 2015 it will already have installed over 110,000 LED lights across its entire estate.
LED technology has advanced hugely in recent years and the pace continues to increase. To ensure the latest technology can be successfully brought to the retail arena the Engineering and Construction teams at the John Lewis Partnership have worked in close collaboration with Phillips, as manufacturers of LED components, and with Edge Lighting as specialist manufacturers and suppliers of luminaires.
Initially the primary focus was on the environmental and financial benefits that should result from installing LED but it soon became clear that the quality of the light from the LED units available then was a major concern too. Although the savings were substantial, the various options meant compromise in too many areas with the potential risk of damaging the brand.
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Lighting is an essential component of the customer shopping experience and retailers have their own preferences for lighting design that reflect their brand. Management wanted reassurance that light quality wouldn't be compromised and that the capital investment required was appropriate with relatively fast payback.
“AS THE SHOPPING
ENVIRONMENT IN A JOHN LEWIS STORE IS DIFFERENT FROM
THAT IN A WAITROSE SUPERMARKET, THE IDEAL LIGHTING
REQUIREMENTS ARE DIFFERENT TOO.”
LED works very well in cold conditions and had been used by the John Lewis Partnership in refrigeration fixtures for some time. But by 2012 technical developments suggested that the design, engineering and management could be met and that LED could be spread throughout a store. Trials were started at a brand new Waitrose store in Bracknell. These demonstrated that in a real store environment LED provided as good, or better, lux levels than traditional lighting in the shopping aisles. The wattage per square metre dropped substantially and energy costs were reduced by 40% versus the energy consumed by traditional lighting.
This gave Waitrose the confidence to roll out LED lighting at all front- of-store areas for the next new store, at Stratford-upon-Avon. The successful results from the Bracknell tests were repeated and it was calculated that the additional capital investment in LED would pay back within two years.
By 2013 it was decided that LED lighting should become standard in all Waitrose stores. It was also agreed that LED should be considered for the John Lewis stores too, but here the requirements were slightly different.
As the shopping environment in a John Lewis store is different from that in a Waitrose supermarket, the ideal lighting requirements are different too. For example, while Waitrose use a cool white 4000K light, it was decided to use a slightly warmer 3000K light in John Lewis.
In 2013 John Lewis opened a new store in Ipswich. It is the first outlet to be fully fitted with LED lighting, not merely in the public areas but in the warehouse, storage and service areas as well: the savings were a huge 66%.
“In a relatively short space of the time the LED product has improved massively” said Toby Marlow, Engineering Manager for John Lewis “The development that Philips have put into LED has helped us to convince our business that LED should be the preferred option. The light is crisper, the technology is more reliable and the capital costs are now lower than traditional lighting on a
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