LIA White Paper, Setting Out How Lighting Can Support Economic Recovery and the Goal of a Net Zero Economy
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The LIA have published a white paper calling for Government action to drive economic recovery while, at the same time, supporting the commitment to a net zero economy.
At the core of the paper is the need to adopt smart technologies in lighting to green our existing building stock in an ambitious renovation program.
LIA President Terry Dean said “lighting has delivered enormous energy savings over the last 15 years but there is much more that can be done by adopting smart lighting controls while advances in emergency lighting can improve the safety of building occupants. This White Paper is designed to inform Government thinking as they develop policies to stimulate economic recovery and tackle climate change”.
The whitepaper can be read below, but you can download your copy here.
How Lighting Can Support Economic Recovery And The Goal Of A Net Zero Economy
Investing in safer, more comfortable and more efficient buildings will benefit people, the environment and the economy. Lighting and controls have a major part to play in the delivery of smart, energy efficient buildings.
The world is facing an unprecedented crisis with the coronavirus pandemic and the immediate focus is rightly on saving lives and slowing down the spread of the virus. But as the slow process of beating Covid-19 evolves, our attention naturally begins to turn towards recovery from the damage the crisis has inflicted on the UK economy. Many things have changed during the lockdown and the reduction in traffic, cleaner air and reduced travel have highlighted the value of measures we can take to mitigate climate change. What is clear is that the strategy to recover from the crisis must build on a green agenda as has been signalled already by Alok Sharma in the Government’s Recovery Roundtable initiative.
Governments across the world are preparing recovery and support packages and this money must be spent wisely. It must benefit people and address the short-term impacts but should also help accelerate our transition to a sustainable, climate friendly and resilient economy.
At a time when many of us are largely confined to our homes, it seems fitting to consider the building sector as a target for recovery investment. The sector is responsible for 40% (1) of the UK carbon footprint and heating these buildings alone accounts for 10% of the UK’s carbon emissions. Furthermore, waste from construction, demolition and excavation accounts for 59% (2) of our waste. It is worth noting that 80% of the buildings that will be in use in 2050 already exist (1), however, much of that stock is old, energy inefficient and in many cases unhealthy. The UK has among the oldest building stock in the developed world and arguably, it could be considered a greater priority to improve the energy efficiency of these than building new zero carbon homes. With only 1% (on average) of buildings undergoing energy renovations each year, it would take over 100 years to deliver on the UK’s 2050 zero carbon objective.
Renovation of our ageing building stock will reduce energy demand while supporting the value chains of the construction industry and create jobs and wealth. The National Infrastructure Commission established in 2015 has consistently called for greening of the UK building stock to support the government's statutory commitment to be running a net zero carbon economy by 2050.
Despite bans on older lighting technologies in recent years and the benefits of LED lighting, there remains a market for the less efficient lighting technologies and many banned lamp types are still available from companies exploiting loopholes in the regulations. With improved education about the benefits of LED lighting, this trend can be reversed, and the unnecessary waste of energy avoided.
While LED replacement lamps are more efficient than earlier technologies, the most efficient lighting is found in luminaires which have integrated LED light sources. Such luminaires both increase the efficiency and the longevity of their service through managing the critical temperatures at which LEDs operate efficiently.
The LIA welcome the recent announcements by the Chancellor to provide grants for energy efficiency measures in UK homes and public buildings. Over the last three decades, lighting has been responsible for a major reduction in energy consumption in the UK, for example, in 1990 the average cost of lighting a household was £164 consuming a total of 26.6 TWh nationally. Through the continued adoption of new technologies such as LED lighting this will have reduced in 2025 to just £16 per household and a UK energy consumption for lighting of only 2.6TWh, a saving of 89%. (3),(4) However, the full potential savings from a lighting installation cannot be achieved by switching to LED alone.
The Value Of Smart Lighting Systems Post COVID-19
Lighting has an important part to play in the value of a building refurbishment programme.
The digital nature of LEDs has spawned the rapid development of intelligent controls which brings sensors and communication capabilities to lighting systems, bringing benefits that are greater than the sum of their parts.
On average, in any given commercial building, energy accounts for around 1% of the total cost to the business (5). The running of the building itself accounts for 9%. The remaining 90% is devoted to the people and the accumulated knowledge and skills that make a workforce productive. Therefore, maximising energy efficiency is just the tip of the carbon emissions iceberg.
LED lighting is highly efficient. Add presence detectors, daylight linking, timeclock events, and personal control and the impact can be upwards of an additional 60% over the energy savings already provided by LED lighting. However, by gathering the data generated by the sensing networks of lighting systems and combining it with additional data such as weather conditions, longitude and latitude, time of the year, and sharing that data with other building services, smart lighting systems can unlock benefits to building operations, and more importantly to the well-being and comfort of the building occupants as well as their productivity. (6)
In commercial and public buildings, the use of automation, personal control, and data analytics can help realize not only further energy savings but reduce the spread of disease and its effect on health and the economy. Automation allows building occupants to avoid touching shared surfaces such as light switches or blind controls. Occupancy data analytics can tell a facility manager which areas of the building are used and how often over time, allowing the efficient planning of work places. That data in turn can be shared with the climate control system of the building to optimise its efficiency.
The technology to harness all this potential and bring about greater change is available today. The advent of smart portable devices combined with the maturity of wireless technologies make it possible to deploy these solutions in any space, from a single private office to a whole building. However today this kind of installation is the exception, and not the norm. Generally, only the newest buildings strive to offer these capabilities, and therefore significant energy saving opportunities are being missed along with the additional benefits in existing buildings.
The Value Of Upgrading Emergency Lighting
In recent history there have been numerous incidents involving fire and smoke where the emergency lighting installed in high rise residential, mass transit, retail and commercial buildings was found to be ineffective. The failure of the emergency lighting to provide its intended lifesaving benefits is due to poor quality equipment being installed and/or poor routine testing and maintenance of the emergency lighting luminaires.
The benefits of specifying the latest reputable emergency lighting equipment in building renovations can include energy saving from reduced charging load required by modern smart chargers and, more importantly, the introduction of intelligent addressable central testing systems which will ensure the emergency lighting is automatically tested in accordance with international standards. All failures can be reported immediately providing details of the location and type of failure.
Light As A Service - A New Business Model Linked To Energy Savings
A relatively new business model is ‘light as a service’. This enables businesses to free up capital for expansion or development while a lighting supplier installs the new fixtures with no upfront cost. The lights are maintained by the lighting supplier and the finance comes from the energy savings. This enables the adoption of the best energy efficiency technologies and embeds circular economy assurances into a lighting system as the asset remains with the lighting supplier who can upgrade, re-use and recycle the products at the end of their useful life.
Regulations, Incentives and Climate Change
The current UK regulations (Conservation of fuel and power: Part L) sets a requirement for lighting efficiency of 60 luminaire lumens per circuit-watt. This is easily achievable today with the use of the latest technology in LED lighting. However, as described earlier this ignores the major additional savings afforded by current lighting control technologies.
In terms of energy efficiency alone, the use of smart lighting systems allows us to take energy savings to new levels. Even more so with the use of systems that allow the integration of data across multiple building services.
With the freedom to adopt regulatory change afforded by the UK’s exit from the European Union, the UK is in a position to lead the way in terms of climate change actions which also aligns well with the upcoming COP26 conference co-hosted by the UK. An ambitious regulatory policy of energy efficiency, combined with initiatives to refurbish the existing building stock, can both support our climate change ambitions and stimulate economic recovery at the same time.
Recommendations
- Update Part L of the Conservation of Fuel and Power Regulation to require the use of smart lighting systems with capabilities such as presence detection, daylight linking and timeclock events for both new construction and during renovation work.
- Require the use of smart technologies in new and existing buildings so the UK can not only get the wheels of the construction industry moving but set itself up for a more productive economy in the years to come.
- Review taxation policy to encourage the uptake of energy efficient products and incentivise property owners and landlords to upgrade the efficiency of their buildings.
- Consider how circular economy product design and services such as ‘light as a service’ can be incentivised.
- Develop a metric for a product’s circularity i.e. a score for the ability of a product to be more durable, use fewer precious resources, less embedded energy, less in-use energy, upgradability, re-useability and ease of recycling. Link this score to reduced WEEE costs and tax incentives to encourage uptake of products designed for a circular economy.
- In the upcoming review of business rates, consider incentives for businesses raising the energy efficiency of their properties.
- Regional refurbishment plans to rejuvenate poorer areas and reduce their energy consumption.
- Set a minimum energy class C for all buildings and relax listed building regulations to allow greening of historic properties.
- Reduction of energy cost to businesses that adopt energy efficiency measures- high use = higher cost, low use = lower cost.
- Obligations placed on energy companies to fund energy efficiency schemes (Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) was a major driver of energy efficiency) There are still many millions of inefficient light bulbs in use in UK homes. One proposal is to consider a take-back scheme to remove these inefficient lamps from service and replace them with highly efficient LED lamps.
- Classification of buildings as smart and energy efficient- link to incentives
- Requirement for all public buildings to be smart and efficient- leading the way
The Lighting Industry Association are happy to provide details on more lighting specific measures which could be adopted to secure further energy efficiencies while making buildings more comfortable and improving the health and well-being of their occupants.
References:
1 https://www.ukgbc.org/climate-change/
2 https://www.worcester.ac.uk/documents/sustainable-construction-and-refurbishment-policy.pdf
3 VHK, Market Overview on Directional Mains-Voltage Lamps related to stage 3 of Commission Regulation (EU) No 1194/2012, study prepared for the European Commission (Brussels: 3 September 2015). https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/Draft%20Final%20Market%20Assessment%20data.pdf
4 Lighting Industry Association- Lighting Market report 2020
5 https://www.lightingeurope.org/images/focus-areas/LED/11_LE_HealthyBuilding_Infog.pdf
6 https://www.lightingeurope.org/images/publications/position-papers/LightingEurope_-_Position_Paper_on_Healthy_Buildings_-_20191122.pdf
