Lightening the carbon load

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 The irony, of course, is that companies are losing money for every day they leave in place outdated lighting.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.