B&Q: More than 50 stores under LiGO control
February 18, 2011
The Challenge:
Lighting is one of the major operating costs for B&Q. Cutting and managing these costs was imperative in order to deliver greater efficiency – particularly in a climate of increasing competition in the marketplace and rising fuel costs.
- Increase energy efficiency
- Reduce and control energy consumption
Specifying tools ensure that the proposed system takes into account the building user’s requirements at the design stage and hence reduces the commissioning time that comes later on in the project.
The Solution
In this latest raft of stores, we installed LiGO systems to assume full lighting control by setting the scenes required by the time of day, by calendar function, by aisle and virtual group in-store.
We configured scenes to ensure store operating requirements were met – for example, so that lights are off from the time the last person leaves and sets the burglar alarm until the first person in un-sets the alarm and the lights come on to a fixed level which is safe for cleaning or stocking the store.
At the start of trading the store goes to daylight control with the LiGO Msensors controlling each aisle to the pre-set level. With the roof lights this can mean that the lighting can set back to only 10% on a bright day and still maintain an attractive environment in which to shop. At the end of trading the system dims to the stocking level before the last man out sets the alarm.
We also provided controls so the contactor based lighting for the car parks and the canopy lights are set up so that only exceptions to ‘normal trading’ need to be changed. Quick and easy emergency lighting tests can now be carried out from the panel ensuring the fittings are working correctly. In the event of a fire or intruder alarm being detected then an appropriate scene can easily be set.
Performance is constantly checked and the use of the 3G Modem ensures that faults are acted upon swiftly ensuring there are ‘no surprises’ with the stores electricity bills.
- Lighting scenes set by aisle/virtual group, calendar and time of day
- Controlled contractor/canopy lighting for car parks
- Rapid commissioning
The Results
We have completed 7 stores in 4 months, bringing the number of stores using Open Technology systems to 52. This means there are almost 40,000 fittings under LiGO control across the British Isles.
From the graph of the half hourly meter data it can be clearly seen how the change to highly efficient T5 Fluorescent Fittings and the installation of LiGO has dramatically reduced the consumption in the store. Each virtual group in the LiGO measures the cumulative savings made.
- 40,000 fittings under LiGO in the British Isles
- Full lighting control
- Better tracking of energy consumption
- Significant energy saving
