LIGHTING
Lighting can account for around 20% of all electricity consumed in office buildings and is a major portion of your operating costs. Small changes or major retrofits to lighting systems can save you up to 40 percent of current costs. Having a professional consultant assess your lighting needs and your lighting equipment is a wise investment, as he/she can likely uncover numerous ways to reduce your lighting load and improve the overall performance and appearance of your space, both indoors and outdoors.
1) UPGRADE
Typically, lighting retrofits recoup costs quickly and are excellent, low-risk investments. Retrofits are especially effective in older buildings. For one reason, before the widespread use of personal computers, lighting was designed differently. As work moves away from the desktop and onto computer screens, less ambient light is required.
Bulbs and Tubes: Just like at home, upgrading to fluorescent lighting can dramatically reduce energy consumption. And switching out common T12 fluorescents for more efficient T8s can result in even greater efficiency, longer bulb life, less maintenance and better light quality.
Outdoors: Depending on your needs and equipment, consider these steps. Replace incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamps. Replace high intensity discharge (HID) lamps with more efficient HIDs like low pressure sodium (LPS) or high pressure sodium (HPS). Replace mercury vapor HIDs as they consume about three times the energy of LPS lamps.
Ballasts: When retrofitting a lighting system, consider replacing magnetic ballasts with basic electronic ballasts to save at least 12 percent of energy consumption. Premium electronic ballasts can save even more.
Delamping: It's a fancy word for removing unnecessary lights, either entire fixtures or individual bulbs or tubes in a fixture. Fewer fixtures per square foot not only saves energy, but can result in less heat build up, so cooling costs from climate control equipment can also be reduced.
Daylighting: Another fancy word with a simple meaning. It's all about maximizing natural daylight with windows, skylights and reflective surfaces to reduce the load on artificial light. Daylighting is particularly important when building additions and new facilities, as you can design a space that needs the bare minimum of lighting.
Signs: Replace older exit signs with LED signs that use almost zero energy. Don't forget, little OneThings add up.
2) MAINTAIN or TUNE-UP
Sophisticated lighting systems and controls should be monitored carefully to ensure proper operation. And don't forget to clean or dust fixtures, bulbs and lighting sensors on a regular basis to ensure they're working properly, and therefore, efficiently.
3) CONTROLS
Controls can greatly improve efficiency and offer you more flexibility in how you use lighting in your space. Occupancy controls shut off lights in empty areas and photosensor controls dim or shut off lights when there's enough natural light to do the job (essential for outdoor lighting). Timers can shut off or turn on lights according to work schedules. And motion sensors are ideal for lesser-used areas such as stock rooms and unoccupied offices.
4) BEHAVIOR
Very often, employees have control over light use in their work space. So it's important that they know the impact that lighting has on the company's energy bill and are motivated to reduce wasteful practices. If you don't have controls, make sure employees know to you turn off lights in unoccupied areas and in their area before they leave. Encourage employees to use natural light or task lighting in their individual spaces and shut off unnecessary ambient lights. All building inhabitants should be aware of lighting policies that save energy, such as keeping bathroom lights off when not in use, turning off all lights in an area during certain times of day, etc.