Tuesday 20 July 2010

Newcastle switched on to lighting savings

Newcastle council is taking major steps to cut its energy consumption and carbon emissions by tackling lighting across the city.

It is carrying out an extensive upgrade programme which once completed is set to cut carbon emissions by 1,200 tonnes of CO2 a year.

The work is being carried out with the help of lighting specialists Chalmor. So far, four buildings have been upgraded and a further nine buildings will be included in the roll-out programme.

In most of the buildings, the lighting is linked to Chalmor's BlueWave 2-channel lighting controllers, enabling the lighting to be controlled in relation to occupancy and daylight levels. For smaller spaces, Chalmor has provided single channel combined occupancy/light sensors to achieve the same level of control with minimum re-wiring.

The return on investment for each building varies but some of the car parks that are lit 24 hours a day are expected to yield an 18 month payback, including installation costs. Most of the buildings offer a payback of less than five years, entitling the council to take advantage of Carbon Trust/Salix loans to fund the investment.

"Upgrading the lighting is a key element in the council's carbon management programme," explained a council spokesman. "Replacing existing T8 fluorescent tubes with high efficiency T5 light sources will reduce our installed electrical load by around 50%."

In addition, the new T5 lamps will last three times as long as the previous T8 lamps, so maintenance costs and the cost of lamp disposal under the WEEE Directive will be less.