Zeroing in: Old streetlights in towns like Ruthin could soon give way to modern LED luminaries, as Denbighshire takes advantage of a zero percent interest loan from the UK government.

 First, Tilley considered changing eight incandescent and halogen lamps to LED in every one of the UK’s 615,000 hotel bedrooms – and then a complete changeover including common areas in 31,000 hotels.

Let’s see what happens:

The results are staggering: £131 million ($199 million) and 677,000 tonnes of CO₂ could be saved if Britain’s hotels changed their bedroom, corridor and toilet lights to LED.

But for many businesses, the capital investment needed to do this is still considered a barrier, even when it might pay for itself in a year or less.

The scale of the potential savings – and their contribution to CO₂ reduction targets – should capture the imagination of the hotel industry. But government should also be more involved in encouraging better lighting, if it is serious about lowering the country’s energy consumption.

Novel Energy Lighting has supplied LED lighting to many hotels in the UK, and can support you in your hotel retrofit. We also offer LED lighting finance through our partners at Lombard Capital to eliminate the capital barrier, and allow you to pay for your upgrade from the energy savings alone! Visit us to discuss the opportunity in more detail, or call: 0208-540-8287

We’re starting to introduce LEDs

We’ve used LEDs when we’ve done office refurbishments. We’ve gone from individual cellular offices to open-plan offices at the force headquarters in Northampton. We’ve done this primarily to house more people. And when we’ve done this we’ve converted the old T5s and T8s to LED.

I’ve also used them outside under walkways. I’ve recently completed a project where I’ve replaced a load of SON 80s with LED spotlights on a building for general lighting around our firearms range. That’s probably the most adventurous project I’ve attempted with the police force. They’re very old school.

Initial installations have been successful

LEDs are reducing our energy consumption. Most of our buildings are old, and so the Display Energy Certificates (DEC) are very low. The energy being used against the floor area of the building doesn’t quite work out, and it drags our DECs down.

By changing as many of the old lights to LED as we can, we’re reducing our energy consumption and cutting down on maintenance. The reason we’re doing the upgrades is for long-term cost saving.

The force isn’t as tech-savvy as I’d like

I think it’s getting there, but I think we as a force have to catch up, which we are with the new buildings. I’ve done one complete station in Rushdon with LED, a small one. We also opened a new building about 18 months ago that has a full control system everywhere and energy-efficient lighting, but they’re not LED fittings.

We used PL36s which are low energy and high frequency but not as efficient as LEDs. We have controls on the lights but the controls aren’t yet hooked up to the building management system. But now, any new building we do will have lighting controls.

Safety and security comes first

The work I do is quite unique, it’s different from a normal property manager because of the environment that I work in. I did one complete station with LED. We have to think about safety, and be sure before we install anything. You can’t have lights going on and off in custody areas, and we have to find different ways of making lights that have to be on all the time more efficient.

Cost has to be taken into account

Everything is financially driven, especially with budgets being cut the way they are. It constricts us considerably, but now that trials have been successful, it’s easier to put a case forward. Providing it’s not one of these projects where it’s given to a contractor and they’re asked to design and supply, we’ll have it done the way we want it – if we’ve got any input – and that means getting the best value for the public’s money.

I’m governed a lot by cost. I’m spending your money, I’m spending my money, I’m spending everybody’s money, so I’ve got to get the best value for the pound, and that’s what I’m looking for all the time. Value and reliability are important. If one lamp was £2 and one was £2.50 and I knew the more expensive one was better, I’d invest in that one.

Controls didn’t work well for us at first

We introduced controls a few years ago, primarily in corridors. Our old property manager was a bit old school. I wanted to put them in general public areas like corridors and toilets, but he wouldn’t let me put them in toilets. The main problem we had with those controls was that the old style lighting didn’t react fast enough if there was an emergency, if there’s a policeman running through the corridor because an alarm has sounded in the cells.

Lighting for the police has some unique requirements

The lighting inside the firing arms range is controlled by the building management system and is used to create different scenarios. You can make the lights flash on and off, and all sorts of strange things happen with the lighting to simulate different training environments. The day will come when we turn ordinary fluorescents to LED, but for the moment, we’re leaving that side of the business alone.

THE DETAILS

Paul Smyth of Salix Finance, which was also represented in the discussion on funding for lighting projects, said that streetlighting and LED lighting is a focus for his clients, with spend on such projects amounting to £7.2m and £5.2m respectively as of year-end 2012/2013. He notes a change of emphasis in chosen lighting solutions, with LED now representing more than half of such solutions due to the cost, lumens per watt and efficiency gains. T5, in comparison, represented 48 per cent of projects in the year ending 2012/13 – for the first time, less than LED equivalents.

He says Salix clients have now delivered £1bn of financial savings for the public sector and the organisation is now launching a new website with an online application process which is designed to be easy-to-use and more case studies and guidance.

‘We find that for every £1 you invest you save £4 over the lifetime of a particular technology,’ he said.

Novel Energy Lighting works with The Carbon Trust, Siemens Financial Services, Salix, and Lombard Green Energy Capital to provide financing to clients wishing to implement upgrade projects. Largest energy savings come from retrofitting T8 Tubes withLED Tubes and LED Panels. Please call us today for advice on financing your LED upgrade project.

Shuttla

www.novelenergylighting.com