Lighting can be a key source of energy waste – but also a
crucial opportunity for carbon reduction, advises Kevin Cox,
technical director at Energys Group

Industrial settings provide a unique set of
challenges when it comes to upgrading
lighting in order to save energy. Health
and safety concerns, maintenance issues and
on-site hazards can complicate the situation.

Little wonder, then, that the impulse for
many companies has been to delay upgrades
until better economic times. The irony, of
course, is that companies are losing money
for every day they leave in place outdated
lighting. The outlay on electricity required
for industrial sites – what was once a static,
even nominal cost – is now rising sharply. It’s
not just energy bills that are a financial
burden. Environmental legislation, including
the Carbon Reduction Commitment, means
that carbon dioxide emissions now come
with a price tag, due to the carbon allowances
that have to be bought. In many cases, energy
waste, in the form of inefficient lighting,
must now be paid for twice.

The rise of retrofit
The business case for new-generation T5 or
LED lighting is clear, yet many companies
remain wary of costs escalating during
carbon-reduction projects. Traditionally, the
biggest barrier to upgrading lighting systems
has been the perceived disruption and downtime
involved. It’s still a popular
misunderstanding that installing low-energy
lighting requires complete overhaul of lighting
systems. Indeed, low-energy lamps were
originally designed to require completely
different light fittings.

However, retrofit innovations have emerged
to address this problem. Plug-in converters
that transform old-style fluorescent light
fittings so that they accommodate T5 lamps
are well-established. What’s more, the quality
of light produced by fluorescent lamps has
increased over the last few years. New-style
T5 lamps boast lower energy consumption
and offer faster start-up and restrike, better
colour rendition and reduced glare – making
them well suited to industrial settings.

Elsewhere, LED retrofit options have also
emerged, in line with the demand for the
long-lifespans and tiny energy consumption
associated with LED lighting. Simple-toinstall
LED replacements are now available
for 2D lamps, GU10 or MR16 lamps, AR111
lamps and T8 lamps.

Forgotten areas
Despite the rise of such retrofit solutions,
sticking points remain. Even for sites that
have already upgraded some of their lighting,
companies continue to miss out on savings.

It’s natural to concentrate on remedying how
the most crucial areas of a site are lit, such as
the factory floor or workshop area. However,
other areas may remain forgotten: warehouses,
toilets, corridors and even car parks can be
huge sources of energy waste. For this
reason, when tackling lighting energy waste,
it’s important to think about the site as a
whole. Consider which spaces require which
type of lighting, and how that lighting can be
achieved at low energy consumption.

Notably, LED and T5 lighting now have
High Bay applications. This opens up new
avenues for energy saving and reduced
maintenance. In environments where
changing a light bulb is far from simple,
upgrading to lamps that can last 40,000h+
means a much lower maintenance burden.

Case study
Welsh Water, which provides water supply
and sewerage services to more than three
million people, is subject to particularly
stringent health-and-safety procedures. Water
and wastewater treatment environments are
notoriously difficult to work in, and adding
disruption, noise and dust as a result of
replacing the light fittings could make a
difficult environment into a treacherous one.

For this reason, when Welsh Water sought
to upgrade its fluorescent lighting, it chose a
retrofit converter – ‘Save It Easy’ from
Energys Group – to slot the new T5 lamps
into place. A specialist in low-carbon retrofit
technologies, Energys Group also carried out
the installation process, replacing 9623 lamps
across 41 sites.

Adam Fairman, energy innovation and
programme manager at Welsh Water, says:
“The Save It Easy installation was a big job,
involving dozens of sites – many of them
industrial treatment plants. It was reassuring
that the Energys engineers took the health
and safety aspects of our company very
seriously. As a result, the project was nondisruptive
and well-organised. We were able
to accomplish our goal to reduce our carbon
footprint, without compromising the safe
running of the company.”
Welsh Water is set to slash its carbon
footprint by 442t of CO2 and its electricity
bills by £70,000 a year. This will enable it to
secure a better position on the CRC’s league
table and reduce the number of carbon
allowances it needs to purchase. The
successes of companies like Welsh Water
prove that cutting carbon through lighting
upgrades is a challenge worth taking on.

Retrofit converters for T5 and LED
lighting cut down on complications and
ensure upgrades can be carried out simply
and quickly. Carbon reduction doesn’t need
to be flashy; the most cost-effective ways to
reduce energy are usually the simplest.