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Gordon Routledge, lighting expert and publisher of Lux, investigates a widely held belief about insects’ lighting preferences.
Ultraviolet light has been exploited for years to lure flies to an early death by electrocution – as can be seen in the bug traps at any supermarket’s fresh meat counter. Over the years I have heard from numerous sources that, because LEDs don’t emit ultraviolet light, they don’t attract insects.
“Given a choice between no light and a white light, do insects give up and go home, or do they fly merrily around your head, laughing at your feeble LED fittings and making the occasional landing on your neck to suck your blood?”
At first glance the statement seems to pass the common sense test. I didn’t start to really question it until I left a retrofit LED bulb switched on to test in the garage for six months, during which time the diffuser accumulated a significant number of corn flies. If there’s no UV, what is it about LEDs that’s so irresistible to insects?
Spend a little time trawling the internet and you will quickly unearth a wealth of articles, reports and anecdotes on UV light, insects and LEDs, frequently contradicting each other and sometimes with a strong smell of snake oil about them.
A few calls to the Royal Entomological Society put me on a clearer track, and I was directed to some useful papers on insects and light. Perhaps the most pertinent was undertaken in 2005 at the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad, Pakistan, titled ‘Insect orientation to various colour lights in the agricultural biomes of Faisalabad’.
The research was carried out by erecting a number of illuminated one metre-square screens in two separate locations, each six metres apart, and collecting the insects that became trapped on each panel at half-hourly intervals.
The study found that 60-70 per cent of insects preferred light at the blue end of the spectrum. But that doesn’t mean the others stayed at home – insects, as it turns out, have a wide variety of preferences. Eighteen per cent headed for a white light, another eight to 10 per cent went for yellow and two per cent headed straight for the red light district.
This is all very interesting, but what if you’re the only light in town? Little research has been carried out in the area of general lighting, and more specifically LED. Given a choice between no light and a white light, do insects give up and go home, or do they fly merrily around your head, laughing at your feeble LED fittings and making the occasional landing on your neck to suck your blood?
After the success of the North Yorkshire garage LED trial, I took the opportunity to extend the study to my brand new LED-lit kitchen. Leaving the doors open last week, I can report that the local midges are more than happy to hang around on a wall under an LED downlight, where they are soon joined by a selection of moths and flies.
“It appears that insects, like humans, have quite complex and diverse tastes in lighting, and may well spend hours debating the colour rendering of a dung heap under different sources”
And with lower levels of radiated heat than traditional light sources, they are far less likely to get burned in the process. It’s only a matter of time before word gets around in the insect community about this cool new hangout.
It appears that insects, like humans, have quite complex and diverse tastes in lighting, and may well spend hours debating the colour rendering of a dung heap under different sources.
But, also like humans, they’ll make do with what light there is. I’m sure the option of hanging around in a dimly-lit Starbucks and divebombing freshly-made cappuccinos is preferable to the risk of being spattered across a truck windscreen on the M25 while trying to find a nice, white HID lamp.
So next time Snake Oil Bob drops in to hawk his wares on the basis of their anti-bug properties, send him packing with an LED torch to Faisalabad, and he can explain to the local insects himself that it doesn’t emit any UV – if they’ll stop biting him for long enough to listen.
LED · led bulbs · LED lamps · led lighting · novel energylighting · philips led · thorn led
The builder of this new residential development in northwest London has installed five thousand LED lamps from Megaman.
The lamps are in the same format as the traditional halogen lamps that have become ubiquitous in living room and kitchen ceilings up and down the land. But because they’re LEDs, they use far less energy, generate less heat and last much longer – these ones are expected to keep going for up to 50,000 hours.
The development at 243 Ealing Road – a joint venture between construction firm Hill and Network Living – includes seven blocks of new apartments overlooking the Grand Union Canal. It’s a key part of the regeneration of the Alperton area, which also includes plans for shops, green spaces and business premises.
Installer RB Emerson used around 5,000 Megaman Professional LED GU10 lamps in the development, in non-dimmable 4W and dimmable 6W versions. Both options provide warm white light, with a beam angle of 35°.
The lamps have been installed in the living rooms, dining rooms, hallways, kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms of the private apartments at 243 Ealing Road, and in the kitchens and bathrooms of the shared ownership properties.
It’s an example of the great results you can get from LEDs in the residential market. Unfortunately, consumers are still reluctant to buy LED lamps for their homes because they’re significantly more expensive than the less efficient alternatives, and too many people have had bad experiences with poor quality LED lamps that are too dim, have poor colour rendering or die after a short time.
But business users are embracing good quality LED lamps on a huge scale, with hospitality brands including All Bar One, O’Neills, Radisson Blu and Spirit Pubs all embarking on big LED lamp rollouts.
Europe has already phased out some types of halogen lamps to reduce the amount of energy used for lighting, and is moving towards banning more. LED manufacturers like Megaman have supported this policy, but the wider lighting industry lobbied successfully for the halogen phase-out to be delayed, arguing that consumers weren’t yet ready to make the switch.
Visit Novel Energy Lighting to order your Megaman LED lamps, or explore our range of other top names brands. LED lighting is now cheaper than you think!
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Big businesses will soon have to audit their energy consumption and come up with ways they could cut it. Actually doing anything about it, however, is down to them.
Colin Lawson of Lux reports: The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (Esos) came into force in July 2014, and requires that all large organisations (defined as those with more than 250 employees) face their energy consumption head-on by conducting regular audits and setting out how they could use less. The scheme presents a significant opportunity for businesses to streamline operations, increase their competitiveness and boost the bottom line – although there is no obligation for them to implement any recommendations from the audits.
We’re now at the halfway point in the rollout of Esos – organisations that registered their eligibility for compliance back in December 2014 are now taking steps to ensure their audits are completed by December of this year. Indeed, the most forward-thinking companies may already have their compliance in the bag.
Decc wants companies to face up to their energy use
Of course, some organisations still view the procedure as an exercise in tick-box compliance. But the conversation has largely moved on from general awareness of Esos legislation to making the most of the opportunities it represents. Compulsory energy audits mean companies have no choice but to acknowledge their energy consumption, and it’s likely that once confronted with stark evidence of the potential savings to be had – UK businesses stand to save up to £1.6 billion ($2.4 billion) – many companies will at the very least want to explore some of the easier energy-efficiency wins.
A survey carried out by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) reveals that, when asked, ‘How much of a priority is energy efficiency for your business?’ 91 per cent of respondents said ‘high’ or ‘quite high’.
Low-hanging fruit:
Lighting, while not necessarily a big win compared to other energy-saving technologies, represents some of the ripest low-hanging fruit available to organisations wanting to implement Esos recommendations – it’s affordable, quick to implement and offers a strong return-on-investment in the face of rising electricity costs (which have doubled for businesses over the last decade, according to the Carbon Trust).
Indeed, with up to 40 per cent of a building’s electricity use accounted for by lighting, it’s little surprise that official Esos guidance lists some standard lighting measures among its energy-saving suggestions. The mention of measures such as LED lighting, occupancy sensors, daylight sensors, maintenance plans and basic employee engagement suggests that the government still believes the potential of energy-efficient lighting remains under-exploited, and that it sees Esos as a chance to push more companies into implementing these fundamental steps.
“Compulsory energy audits mean companies have no choice but to acknowledge their energy consumption”
As an industry, we have a responsibility to help communicate the many benefits of energy-efficient lighting to our market, not just for complying with Esos, but as a long-term measure of cost-effective sustainability. And of course, taking energy-saving needs into account provides clients with a better value product, which is good news for customer satisfaction levels and business competitiveness. Everyone stands to benefit.
Dispelling myths:
But while for many in the industry swapping outdated lighting for new low-energy offerings is a no-brainer, it’s important to remember just how swiftly technology in this arena has changed in recent years, and to be mindful of some of the lighting myths that continue to linger in the minds of decision makers.
What were once specialist solutions are now mainstream options available to a wider range of organisations at more affordable prices. Customers have greater choice, and will need support in making the right lighting investments for their needs.
Crunching the numbers:
While once the conversation focused on CFLs, LED lighting has come to the fore, saving around 75 per cent energy use while offering the same, if not brighter, light output as halogen lighting. And, according to the Carbon Trust, new LED fittings (as opposed to retrofit LED lamps) have the potential in the UK to reduce electricity bills by more than £300 million and reduce carbon emissions by more than a million tonnes over the next three years.
But, these facts may be unknown to the decision makers responsible for implementing Esos recommendations.
The benefits available to those seeking to address their energy consumption through efficient lighting are ample, matched by the many opportunities the lighting industry has in the face of the Esos legislation. The term ‘low-hanging fruit’ is used a great deal these days, but if Esos regulation indicates anything, it’s that there’s still a sizeable market for these energy-saving measures, and the lighting industry is well positioned to benefit from it just as much as the companies undertaking the audits.
Call us today to discuss your site needs, Tel: 0208-540-8287. We can conduct a lighting survey to assess LED retrofit opportunity, to provide costs and energy (& CO2) savings. We are also able to arrange
energy efficiency financing, where loans are repaid from energy savings.
We supply a wide range of LED lamps, tubes, and fittings, and can source bespoke LED products to suit.
Novel Energy Lighting Ltd.
sales@novelenergylighting.com
energy efficiency financing · energy efficient lighting · energy saving · esos · LED lamps · led lighting · led panels · led tubes · Novel Energy Lighting
Virgin Trains: LED lighting at stations is as much about customer satisfaction as it is about energy
The LED Express: Virgin Trains East Coast will have soon upgraded the platform and concourse lighting at nine stations. As for the trains themselves, watch for new LED lighting in 2018, when a faster fleet from Hitachi (mock-up pictured) starts riding the rails.
‘I can see clearly now the LEDs have come.’ With apologies to song writer Johnny Nash and singer Jimmy Cliff, that is the tune that passengers on Virgin Trains’ new East Coast franchise are starting to sing now that a £1.5 million platform and concourse lighting overhaul is well under way with energy efficient LEDs.
Picking up where the line’s previous owner left off, Virgin is ripping out the old lighting at nine stations that it manages from as far north as Berwick-upon-Tweed on the Scottish border down to Peterborough, and is also upgrading the lighting at its maintenance depot at London’s King Cross station.
The UK government started the job last August when it still owned and operated the Edinburgh-to-London mainline service, then called East Coast. A joint venture of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and transport firm Stagecoach won the franchise in November, and began operating it at the beginning of March.
The newly branded Virgin Trains East Coast is committing £140 million in upgrades to the line, an amount that should help buoy the £1.5 million lighting project, which is already complete at the Durham and York stations.
Round up the usual benefits, and more
While Virgin expects the lighting to achieve all of the standard LED benefits such as reduced energy and maintenance bills and the elimination of mercury-containing fluorescent lights, it is equally emphasising that the new lighting marks a big improvement in light quality.
Doncaster diodes: A new LED light on the platform one recent morning in Doncaster.
And that translates into big improvements in customer satisfaction and safety, which passengers are alredy reporting in early surveys.
‘It’s really important to stress that whilst new LED lighting comes with obvious environmental benefits in terms of energy costs and the life of the fittings, we’ve also been very keen to stress the customer satisfaction and safety benefits,’ said Tim Hedley-Jones, Virgin Trains East Coast’s major projects director. ‘Replacing lighting is just as important as refurbiishing a facility or putting in a new facility at a station in terms of how a customer feels at that location.’
Tangible intangibles
Noting that customer satisfaction is ‘a bit of an intangible’, Hedley-Jones elaborated on what makes successful night lighting.
‘What we find is that once we’ve done the replacement of the lighting, effectively you’re replicating a daylight scenario at the station,’ he said. ‘That’s been the anecdotal feedback from people – it is a much clearer environment at the station…It’s about how someone feels when they’re at a station. We all know how good we feel generally when the sun shines or when we’re out in the daylight.
‘So I think its about sort of getting into some of the slightly harder to pin down aspects of human behaviour that respond well to high levels of light and to things being bright. We’ve also been doing a painting programme at some of our stations. So when you combine a bit of lighting with improved painting, you really get a feel good factor amongst customers…So customer satisfaction is a really important aspect of doing this project. It’s not just about being a good environmental custodian.’
Safe talk
The safety aspect is easier to pinpoint.
‘We have customers at our stations who perhaps may be carrying lots of luggage, or they may be older people, or people with young children,’ he noted. ‘Quite often they find that stations can be slightly dark, or perhaps the way to go is not clear. What we find is that once we’ve done the replacement of the lighting, again, you’re effectively replicating a daylight scenario at the station. So again there’s a real safety benefit to stop people tripping over or having accidents because they didn’t see something.’
Virgin expects to wrap up all nine stations by the end of the summer. It is close to finishing at Peterborough, Newcastle, Grantham, Doncaster and Newark, and will then move on at Berwick and Darlington. It is not upgrading lighting at a few of its smaller stations, or at Wakefield, a new station that already has modern illumination.
Virgin is refraining from installing high levels of intelligent lighting system in which, for example platform lights would remain off when not needed, and turn on when sensors detect people on the platform, because such systems could confuse train drivers.
‘These are places which are operational bits of the railway, where we have to be very careful about sort of having lights flickering on and off if there are trains coming through and obviously there’s signalling and things like that,’ Hedley-Jones explained. ‘So in this case it’s not necessarily appropriate for there to be that sort of a facility on the concourse or the platforms.’
Sensors would be more appropriate in areas like toilets or back offices, but the 9 station upgrades are focused only on concourses and platforms. Wakefield, the new station, already includes sensors in those areas, Hedley-Jones said.
As for the trains themselves: Watch for improved interior lighting in 2018, when a new fleet of trains from Japan’s Hitachi are due to come into service (the same trains shoud come online on First Great Western service in the south and west in 2017). Those will include LEDs from LPA Excil. If they allow lighting levels to tone down and warm up according to the time of day, then passengers might just find they have something else to sing about.
Novel Energy Lighting works with network rail and other rail contractors. See out Linear High Bay solutions for platforms here.
led high bays · LED lamps · led lighting · led tubes · Novel Energy Lighting · platform lighting · railway lighting
Getting that graphene glow: Graphene Nobel Laureate Sir Kostya Novoselov (l) and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne light up with one of the graphene LED lamps at The University of Manchester’s National Graphene Institute.
LUX Reports: For LED bulbs, not only are prices coming down, but also the bulbs themselves keep getting better. The latest example: in a few months you’ll be able to purchase a light bulb made with everybody’s favourite miracle material, graphene.
The bulb, from a UK startup called Graphene Lighting, ‘Is expected to perform significantly better and last longer than traditional LED bulbs,’ a press release from the UK’s The University of Manchester states (it must be a sign of progress if we can now refer to ‘traditional’ LED bulbs!). ‘It is expected that the graphene lightbulbs will be on the shelves in a matter of months, at a competitive cost.’
That’s a lot of great expectations from the university, which is excited because, for among other reasons, it has a financial stake in Graphene Lighting. The company is a spin-out from the National Graphene Institute, founded at the university with British and European government funding to advance commercial applications of graphene.
Graphene Lighting will coat a bulb’s LED chips with graphene, improving the bulb’s heat removal process, a university spokesperson told Lux. (For those who need reminding: LED bulbs give off light from semiconductors known as light-emitting diodes. And while LEDs are far more efficient than conventional bulbs, they’re still inefficient enough to yield heat that must dissipate).
According to the press release, the graphene leads to ‘lower energy emissions, longer lifetime and lower manufacturing costs.’ The university would not quantify those improvements.
A BBC story suggested that the bulb will cut energy consumption by 10 per cent over other LED bulbs because it enhances electrical conductivity. The Financial Times (registration may be required), which appears to have broken the story about the bulb, also suggested a 10 per cent improvement.
The university spokesperson told Lux that ‘it’s too early to say,’ whether the 10 per cent figure is accurate.
The BBC story said the bulb uses a filament-shaped LED. The FT said it will be priced lower than the ‘£15 and more’ that it said is typical for comparable dimmable LED bulbs.
Lux has requested an interview with Prof Colin Bailey, a director of Graphene Lighting and deputy president of The University of Manchester, to find out more about the lamp’s workings.
The University of Manchester is the birthplace of graphene. Scientists Sir Andre Geim and Sir Kostya Novoselov first isolated the wonder material there in 2004, an achievement that earned them the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.
‘This lightbulb shows that graphene products are becoming a reality, just a little more than a decade after it was first isolated – a very short time in scientific terms,’ Prof Bailey said in the press release.
Graphene is a one-atom thin sheet of carbon heralded for having the strength of Superman and conductivity that’s 100 times better than today’s silicon-based semiconductors.
Potential uses span from building materials through energy and electronics, including semiconductors, solar cells and of course, light bulbs. The BBC noted that it is already used in tennis rackets and skis.
Graphene Lighting appears close to delivering a graphene lamp. They’ll be under pressure to come through, lest they deflate expectations.
Photo is from The University of Manchester
energy efficient lighting · graphene lighting · led bulbs · led graphene bulb · LED lamps · led lighting · Novel Energy Lighting
Lux Reports: Retailers are using light as a branding tool. Primark has opted for a bright feel while the opposite approach is popular with retailers such as Hollister and Desigual. Image credit: Primark
Building brands, driving sales, controlling costs, and preserving the all-important ‘look and feel’… who said retail lighting was easy? Here are the eight biggest trends influencing retail lighting in 2015.
1. Energy Saving LED Retrofits:
Retail was one of the first sectors to start dabbling in LED lighting, because of the big energy savings that can be made by replacing electricity-guzzling halogen spotlights. Major retailers are announcing big new rollouts nearly every day: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Next, Walmart… but it’s still a small minority of stores that have switched to the new technology, and it’s mainly the bigger chains with significant resources and economies of scale behind them. In time, though, it seems inevitable that LED will be everywhere.
OUTLOOK: Loads of shops have already gone LED but there are plenty left – especially the smaller ones.
2. Branding with light:
With stiff competition from online shopping, bricks-and-mortar retailers are having to reinvent their stores as a place where consumers can experience the brands and the product. And they’re learning to use light as one of the most effective ways to become distinctive and recognisable – each in their own way. From Hollister to Primark, light is becoming part of what makes brands what they are.
OUTLOOK: This is a trend the lighting business is well placed to cash in on.
3. New colour technology:
Colour has always been key in retail lighting. Many buyers still assume that going LED means compromising on colour quality; but if you avoid the cheap rubbish, it doesn’t have to be so. Halogen has long been the benchmark for colour quality, but in fact many LED products are now outperforming halogen and the latest colour technologies use specially tuned light to keep whites clean while making certain colours even more vivid
OUTLOOK: LED spent a long time proving its adequacy. Get set for it to start fulfilling its real potential.
4. Lights that do new things:
What if lights could guide you around a shop and send you special offers when you’re looking at particular items? Well, now they can, thanks to super-accurate positioning systems powered by LED lights. It’s done by modulating light in a way the human eye can’t see, but that can be picked up by the cameras in shoppers’ mobile phones. The light from each luminaire carries a unique code, which the phone uses to pinpoint its position. EldoLED is already installing its Lux Award-winning positioning system at retail sites in the US, GE has several trials under way at retail sites in the US and Europe, and Philips is trialling its system at a museum in the Netherlands.
OUTLOOK: We’ve yet to see it in a real-life retail application, but we’re very excited about it.
5. The flight to quality:
We’ve all seen heartbreaking examples of poor-quality LEDs in retail. A well-meaning store manager has tried to save money on energy and maintenance, and now the shop is dim, all the clothes look washed out and the customers feel like zombies. Those days are coming to an end: the wild west of the LED market is being tamed, and even those buyers who had their fingers burned (literally or figuratively) in the early days are trying again, with a renewed focus on look and feel.
OUTLOOK: Some scepticism remains, but LED is winning new friends daily.
6.Overcoming the fear:
Retailers can’t afford to get the look and feel wrong, so LED rollouts tend to be nerve-wracking. There is always a certain risk when you invest in new technology. And with no real standards for LED lighting products, we might just have to embrace that risk. With warranties, funding and improved quality, it’s getting easier, but there’s still inertia – partly the result of bad experiences, uncertainty or mistrust over exaggerated energy-saving and lifetime claims made by manufacturers.
OUTLOOK: Lighting refits are never simple, but more and more people are at it, giving buyers confidence – and it’s getting easier by the day. 7.
Justifying the spend:
It’s easy enough to prove the environmental benefits of an LED upgrade, but sadly that’s not always enough to persuade the finance department to approve the upfront expenses associated with a new lighting scheme. Imagine how much easier it would be if you could prove the correlation between better lighting and increased sales. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to separate the lighting from the myriad of other variables that influence people’s shopping decisions. As Simon Waldron, Sainsbury’s electrical engineering manager, told Lux: ‘The controllability of variables is missing. We need a standardised approach to proving the link between lighting and sales which at the moment can’t be applied.’
OUTLOOK: Don’t hold your breath for a concrete link between lighting and improved sales… but that won’t stop people looking.
8. Clients are smartening up:
Manufacturers have tried to fight LED specticism with product warranties. But the terms are usually written to protect them just as much as their clients – defining and limiting what they have to do if something goes wrong. In a lot of cases, what a warranty promises doesn’t go very far to resolving a client’s immediate problems. If your lighting installation doesn’t work, it’s not much help to ship them all back to China and wait for new ones. So clients are pushing for their own warranty terms. Like Sainsbury’s, which told manufacturers supplying kit for its ongoing LED rollout what their warranties had to say.
OUTLOOK: As trust and quality improve, and the market becomes accustomed to longer-lasting products, this issue may fade. But for now, manufacturers should expect to be kept on their toes.
Contact us for your new retail lighting project. We sell a range of LED fittings, fixtures, and lamps for the retail and hospitality sector. Call us on 0208-540-8287, or email: sales@novelenergylighting.com
energy efficient lighting · LED lamps · led lighting · led tubes · Novel Energy Lighting · retail lighting · shop lights · smart lighting
The Down Hall Hotel, one of the UK’s most established country house hotels, has achieved considerable energy savings on lighting thanks to a simple retrofit to Megaman LED lamps. With Phase 1 of the project concentrating on the main function rooms, lounge and anti-lounge areas, the current estimated figures are 7736kw of energy saved per annum which equates to an annual CO2 saving of 4.21 tons.
Located in Hatfield Heath on the Hertfordshire/Essex borders, Down Hall was built in the Italianate style of architecture, which was a distinct 19th century phase in the history of Classical architecture and the hotel dates back to 1322 with luxurious interior and ornate ceilings, all set in 110 acres of parkland. The hotel has many high ceiling function rooms including the Prior Suite, and this was the first room to be considered for the new LED lamps.
With chandeliers and wall lights in constant use, the old Halogen 28W lamps were constantly failing which meant a scaffolding tower had to be erected each time to replace the lamps, taking up valuable maintenance time and causing serious potential health and safety issues. On review of the lighting it was agreed to switch the existing lighting to Megaman’s 5w candle lamps in warm white, which also offer dimming capabilities for changing the ambience of the room at different times of the day and evening. On completion of the Prior Suite, the staff at Down Hall were so delighted with the result that the other function rooms, namely
Rookwood, Lyndhurst, Harley and the lounge and anti-lounge, were also changed to the new LED lamps. Bob Parker at Down Hall commented “We are extremely happy with the new LED lamps which, apart from the energy savings achieved, actually look better and complement the existing fittings, plus they offer 50,000 hours life. The light output is excellent and staff are commenting that the new lighting has improved the whole ambience of the building. We are now in the process of putting Phase 2 into action which will include the Bridgeman Selwin Suites which is our main ballroom for wedding receptions”.
Novel Energy Lighting supplies LED lighting to the hospitality sector and can provide many references of hotels which have been retrofitted. We sell LED lamps and fittings, and can provide services such as surveys, lighting designs, and installation to help you start saving energy as quickly as possible.
Call us: 0208-540-8287, or email: sales@novelenergylighting.com for more information
energy efficient lighting · hopsitality lighting · hotel lighting · led bulbs · LED Candles · led GU10 · LED lamps · led lighting · led mr16 · led tube · Novel Energy Lighting
 |
| AFP/Jiji Press/AFP/File – Energy saving traffic lights in Japan are failing to melt snow covering them |
AFP News: Energy-saving LED traffic lights seemed like a cool way to cut back on electricity costs, but Japanese police said Monday they might just be too cool — because they don’t melt snow.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) account for around 45 percent of all of Japan’s stop-and-go signals and that proportion is growing as local authorities cotton on to their economising possibilities compared with regular incandescent lights.
But in wintery northern Japan the lights have encountered a problem — drivers can’t see them because they don’t get warm enough to melt accumulated snow.
Akira Kudo of Aomori Prefectural Police said snow has to be removed manually between December and mid-February during blizzards. “We don’t have enough staff members to remove snow as more and more LED lights are being introduced,” he said.
LED lighting is becoming ever more popular in public and private spaces because of its lower energy consumption.
The technology has been big news in Japan since three local-born physicists won the Nobel Prize last year for the development of the blue LED, the breakthrough that led to the white LED now commonly used worldwide.
Visit us at
Novel Energy Lighting to discuss your LED street lighting needs. We also provide project services for lighting offices, retail, hospitality, and homes. Call 0208-540-8287
energy efficient ligfhting · led city lighting · led flood lights · LED lamps · led lighting · led streetlights · led traffic lights · Novel Energy Lighting
Drax power station – Energy efficiency, including LED lighting, means the UK needs fewer of these
The Association for Decentralised Energy, which represents the combined heat and power industry, says that generating energy locally and using it more efficiently is saving consumers more than £37bn ($56bn) a year, compared to 1980.
The report, which looks at local energy generation and energy efficiency actions such as lighting, says that these measures have helped the UK avoid building 14 new power stations, the equivalent of half the country’s current power generating capacity.
But these benefits are often overlooked because policymakers focus too much on energy supply and not enough on demand, the association said. It’s easier for politicians to implement and evaluate big, centralised measures addressing supply than to grapple with the myriad smaller demand-side measures going on across the country, the report says.
Lighting industry figures have made similar criticisms of the government’s approach to energy, arguing that much more attention needs to be paid to reducing demand, rather than simply increasing capacity and moving to renewable energy.
Last year
Lux came up with
its own estimates of how capacity could be reduced if low-energy lighting were more widely adopted.
The ADE wants to move the demand side ‘from the margins to the centre stage, making it the primary focus of future policy’.
The association’s director Tim Rotheray said: ‘Actions on the demand side have helped keep Britain’s lights on, making the UK a better place to do business by keeping energy supplies consistent and reliable… Despite these considerable achievements, new energy policy often repeats the same patterns, taking a centralised approach to solving the energy challenge and overlooking the substantial contribution that users and individual actions can make.
‘With a clear, simple policy approach that values these smaller contributions, demand-side services can help consumers do even more to cut waste, improve competitiveness and reduce emissions. By 2020, we could save consumers a further £5.6 billion and make the UK a more attractive place to do business.
‘Adopting the right policy could mean that by 2020 we could save enough power to run the London Underground for 30 years, equivalent to 45 TWh (45 billion units). Further reduction in energy demand will make the UK more secure and enable greater energy independence.’
energy efficiency · energy efficient lighting · LED lamps · led lighting · Novel Energy Lighting
Simon Nicholas insists he’s not ‘anti-LED’.
It’s a point worth making, as he has become famous in lighting circles for his one-man campaign against bad LED streetlighting.
‘I believe LED is the future of lighting,’ he says. ‘But it’s a sophisticated technology being used crudely because of a lack of expertise. There’s a lack of understanding of the wider issues and a lack of skills within many local authorities.’
‘In many cases it’s cheap and cheerful. It’s not even cheerful, it’s cheap and nasty. In fact it’s not even cheap, it’s expensive and nasty. And if residents complain, all they get back from their local authorities are cut-and-paste platitudes.’
Nicholas thinks taxpayers deserve better, so he has made it his business to get councils to look more carefully at how they procure and specify LED streetlighting – and he’s getting results.
Looking for answers
In a world of confusion and misinformation about LEDs, many lighting professionals dream of customers who are as well informed about lighting as Nicholas. It’s not often you hear members of the general public throwing around terms like spectral composition and luminaire lumens per circuit watt. But be careful what you wish for: Nicholas has been giving manufacturers and local authorities a pretty hard time about their products and practices.
Nicholas is not a lighting man by background. He’s a mechanical engineer who runs a couple of transport and property businesses, and until recently had no more than a passing interest in LED lighting.
But when his local council in Trafford, Greater Manchester tried to replace the streetlights in the conservation area where he lives with brighter lights on higher masts, he complained, and succeeded in getting changes made.
Then he got wind of Trafford’s plans to roll out LEDs, and began to examine their plans.
Since then, his campaign against what he sees as bad LED lighting – either because it’s poorly designed, bad value for money, foisted on people without consultation or potentially damaging to health – has become, in his words, ‘a hobby’.
He hit the headlines in 2013 when the Manchester Evening News quoted (or rather paraphrased) him as saying that LED lights might ‘damage brains’, and last year he appeared on the BBC’s Daily Politics to speak out against bad lighting.
In his spare time Nicholas devours academic papers and policy documents, attends technical seminars on lighting, fires off regular Freedom of Information requests to councils and gets into lengthy arguments on theLighting Talk discussion group on LinkedIn.
He even came to LuxLive last year, and debated LED streetlighting alongside representatives of Westminster City Council, Balfour Beatty and manufacturer CU Phosco. Whatever you think about his views, he’s determined, engaged with the issues and very well informed.
It’s not all about energy
So what’s at the heart of Nicholas’ problem with LED streetlighting? Surely the benefits of this new technology – energy efficiency, light control, colour quality – are compelling?
‘The only criteria anyone cares about is energy efficiency,’ Nicholas told Lux. ‘When you’re introducing LED lighting, the whole process needs to be managed in a very measured and controlled way, and aspects other than energy efficiency need to be considered.’
One of his biggest concerns is the health risks of glare and blue-rich light from LEDs. It’s certainly true that blue light – in certain intensities and under certain circumstances – can damage the eye or disrupt sleep. Many experts insist that fear about the blue in LED streetlights is misplaced, but Nicholas is not satisfied that the risks have been properly researched or addressed.
Not only is there a ‘technical guidance void’ on how best to use LED technology for streetlighting, he says, there’s also a ‘policy void’. ‘Someone needs to put out some guidance. In my view it’s the responsibility of central government, but they don’t seem to have any appetite for it.’
‘Clients are just believing what people are telling them and taking a leap of faith. They’re being promised fit-and-forget for 20 years. In 11 years when the arrays have deteriorated, the driver has blown and the technology has moved on, what are you going to do then?’
He also objects to what he sees as an undemocratic approach to the introduction of LEDs. ‘This new technology is being imposed on people,’ he says. ‘Any negative feedback is being ignored.’
It’s not just Trafford Council that Nicholas has been complaining to – he has also targeted other local authorities, particularly those who have ‘made a big PR deal of what they’re doing’, such as Wigan.
‘They said they had done a trial and were going to extend their trial across the borough,’ Nicholas said. ‘So I ask them a number of questions and they’re struggling to answer them. So I send them some information and ask them to consider it, and as a result they’ve decreased the colour temperature by 40 per cent. I don’t know on what basis they’re thinking 4000K is OK and 5700K is not, but it’s a step in the right direction.’
Nicholas believes local authorities should explore the option of dimming existing streetlighting, which still has years of life left in it, rather than spending millions on brand new LEDs. ‘Manchester and Cardiff have both invested heavily in high-intensity discharge lighting over the last 15 years,’ he says. ‘Cardiff are spending £1.7 million to dim 22,365 lights and saving £312,000 a year. In Manchester they could save £570,000 [if they did the same]. Instead they’re planning to save £750,000 a year on an LED rollout that’s going to cost £33 million, and all the kit they’ve installed in the last 10 years goes in the skip. The lighting level will be less, the glare will be greater and generations of taxpayers will be paying for the debt.’
Follow the money
The way LED rollouts are funded doesn’t always help, Nicholas says. Initiatives like the Green Investment Bank’s loans for lighting upgrades worry him, because he feels they have not paid sufficient attention to quality, including health and environmental issues.
‘They seem happy to subsidise bad as well as good lights,’ he said. ‘The risk is that a local authority who got Green Investment Bank funding go and squander it on poor quality equipment and it won’t work and the company goes bust and the taxpayer is left holding the baby.’
He’s equally unimpressed by private finance initiatives. ‘PFI and LED are not happy bedfellows,’ Nicholas says. ‘The objectives of the PFI supplier and the client are, in my view, mutually exclusive. The contractor wants to do as much as possible and the client just wants to save money. And the contractor doesn’t necessarily give the client the best solution. Manchester is a clear example of this.’
Does he have much faith that the lighting industry will address his quality concerns? ‘No. I’m not sure self-regulation will work. We’ve got a perfect storm of new technology, huge financial pressures on local authorities and a lack of guidance from central government. That’s where the buck has to stop.’
But he has seen positive changes in attitudes from councils with whom he has raised his concerns. ‘I’ve been locked in a battle with Trafford for over 18 months and now we are starting to see some positive results, with a change of emphasis from purely energy savings to consideration of those wider environmental and health impacts which can result from the specification of the wrong spectral composition of outdoor lighting.’
Meanwhile, Cardiff Council has invited him to discuss LED specifications with its highways team, and he’s helping the ILP (the Institution of Lighting Professionals) update its guidance on LEDs.
A couple of years on from getting involved with LED lighting, Nicholas still hasn’t lost momentum. And if central and local government want to come up with effective lighting policies, and win the public round to them, they would do well to pay attention to determined, knowledgeable critics like this.
After all, Nicholas says: ‘If there were any serious counter-argument I’d have heard it by now. And I probably would have gone away.’
Novel Energy Lighting works with councils and developers to specify LED Street Lighting. Call us to discuss your needs: 0208-540-8287, or email: andrew.shuttleworth@novelenergylighting.com
energy efficient lighting · LED lamps · led lighting · led street lights · led streetlighting · Novel Energy Lighting · street lighting
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