Standard Controls of Dublin, who are Open Technology’s LiGO Partners in Ireland have just completed the installation of the DALI Lighting Control System at St Mary’s Univeristy College.

3 LiGO panels were installed in the refurbished library, lecture theatres and ICT suite. The College are long time users of a Trend Building Management System so LiGO’s Virtual IQ allows the lighting system to be controlled from their familiar 963 Supervisor.

‘LiGO is simple to specify, easy to install and is commissioned to the customers requirement so it delivers precise control, maximum energy savings and reduces the maintenance cost of the lighting installation. LiGO is a BMS for lighting control, customers who take sustainability seriously must consider LiGO as part of any lighting refurbishment. The simple graphing function ensures the lighting works exactly as intended week in week out commented Sean O’Toole the Managing Director of Standard Controls.’

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“As France commits itself to switching off at night, why are we in the UK still failing to take control of our lighting?”

The article highlights the measures which will come into force throughout France this summer for both internal and external lighting of buildings. Interior lighting in offices must be switched off an hour after staff leave the premises, lighting in shop windows and commercial premises must be off between 1am and 7am, and façade lighting is to be switched off at 1am. This simple move will prevent emissions of about 250,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, equivalent to the electricity consumption of 750,000 homes.

Chris Bedford looks at the benefits of lighting controls and how energy savings of often 30-40 per cent can be made simply by switching off lights at night or when buildings are unoccupied.

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London Bridge station is being transformed by creating new platforms for more trains, building a new concourse and creating a bigger, better station for passengers.

Huge concourse, natural light

London Bridge station will have the largest concourse in the UK, creating 66% more space, new retail and station facilities. The concourse will unify the station for the first time so that passengers can access all platforms from one place.

LiGO has been chosen for the project as its ability to maximise daylight use wherever possible when controlling lighting aligns to the projects requirement to provide a bright naturally lit space wherever possible. Dawn and dusk scenes will be incorporated to transition the station concourse from natural to artificial light. 

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Total Lighting magazines March issue includes an article from Chris Bedford MD of Open Technology and Steve Edwards from LED specialist Light Planet.

The article on pages 27 & 28, looks at the growing popularity of energy-efficient lighting solutions.  “With economic and environmental concerns at the front of most businesses’ minds, energy-efficiency lighting solutions are increasingly popular. Couple advanced LED technology with intelligent controls and the savings are dramatic”.

Chris Bedford and Steve Edwards discuss the bright future for the two technologies, the article can be found on pages 27 & 28.

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LiGO has been highly commended for its completed project at The National Gallery during the 2012 LUX awards, in the category of  Retrofit Lighting Project of the year.

The Challenge:

To replace the existing gallery lighting with LED’s and digital control, integrate this into the existing Building Management System (BMS) and provide Gallery Staff with a simple to operate touch screen.

The emergence of LED coupled with the LiGO delivered what the Gallery was looking for:

• Superior Light Quality
• Reduced Energy Consumption
• Reduced Maintenance Costs

The full case study and more can be found at: www.opentechnologyuk.com

Overseas News …

Standard Control Systems (SCS) of Dublin have represented Trend in Ireland for over 20 years. LiGO’s ability to work with Trend through the Virtual IQ built into LiGO makes it an obvious addition for SCS to deliver more to their customers.

Adding lighting control through LiGO to their already impressive skill set offers their customer’s real potential for energy saving no matter the building type.

Workshops have already been undertaken with building owners, consultants and contractors and more are planned for 2013.

Managing Director Shaun O’Toole was the first to see the potential LiGO can offer SCS’s customers.

Beware of the Light Bulb Salesmen!

It seems every page we turn and every exhibition we visit we are encouraged in fact almost forced to consider throwing away our existing lighting and replacing it with LED technology.

With claims of too good to miss energy savings and lamps that will last forever it’s a very compelling argument. If it stacks up???

The old saying ‘you gets what you pay for’ rings true here too. We have been asked to test products and we can only express our surprise at how reality differs from the claims made by some manufactures.

At Open Technology the LiGO is well suited to control LED Lighting and when quality LEDs have DALI drivers fitted the dimming and energy saving results are every bit as impressive as those achieved by fluorescent technology.

Our advice is to exercise care and test manufacturer’s claims and don’t forget that adding real control through LiGO will give you the maximum return on your investment.

LiGO helping Allianz reduce its carbon footprint.

Allianz Insurance is one of the largest general insurers in the UK. Their goal is to reduce carbon emissions by  55% per employee by 2015, based on 2006 figures.

The building in Milton Keynes prior to Allianz taking up the lease, had a number of internal partitions removed and the floor was raised resulting in a low ceiling (2.6m) with poor light distribution. In addition, a metal grid ensured that lights could only be positioned in specific locations across the ceiling, not ideal for the location of desks and work stations.

This was the challenge Allianz placed on Light Planet, replace the existing 4 x 18W recessed fluorescent modular fittings with energy saving lights that could improve the overall distribution of light in the space, and be tailored to suit individual work stations.

Steve Edwards, Light Planet’s Technical Director had to design a lighting layout that not only allowed for the restrictions imposed by the ceiling layout, but also provided the most uniform distribution of light at an average lux no greater than 500. The installation of 118 LED Edge Lit panels achieved this in place of the existing 146 4-tube fluorescent fittings.

Intelligent lighting control became a must and, working with Open technology, Light Planet designed the scheme to utilize the LIGO control system which uses the DALI protocol to individually control each light fitting. Once installed and commissioned, the system has allowed Allianz to tailor light levels to suit individual’s work stations and maintain an operational load that is 65% of full power.

A single LiGO panel controls the open plan office and two meeting rooms. The system is connected to Open Technology’s engineers over a 3G modem supplied as part of the LiGO panel.  The system has 118 lights, 24 combined light level and PIR sensors and switches.

The lighting is controlled to function in such a way as to:  

• Maximize energy savings.
• Delivering a comfortable working environment.
• Operate on a time profile that reflects working times.
• Switch on and off with occupancy.
• Respond to daylight levels.
• Set to various scenes to match the activity in the meeting rooms.

Overall this has created a more enjoyable working environment whilst delivering considerable reduced energy consumption. The installation of the intelligent LIGO control system has reduced the energy consumption of the office lighting by an additional 35%. This is on top of the 60% energy reduction achieved by replacing traditional T8 modular fluorescent fittings with Light Planet’s LED edge lit panel.

Allianz will continue to monitor the success of this project, from energy saving and personnel feedback, and will work with LightPlanet and Open Technology to implement similar schemes in other buildings throughout the UK.

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With the UK languishing in the ‘relegation zone’ of Europe’s renewable energy league table behind countries such as Spain, Greece and France, you might have hoped that the UK Government would at least have been motivated to beat the French to introducing a night-time ban on lighting.

New measures will come into force throughout France from July, and apply to both interior lighting and external lighting of building facades. Interior lighting in offices must be switched off one hour after staff leave the premises; lighting in shops windows and commercial premises must be off between 1am and 7am; and façade lighting is to be switched off at 1am.

This simple move will save around 250,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, equivalent to the electricity consumption of 750,00 homes.   So will the UK be quick to follow? I wouldn’t count on it. Government makes all the right noises around energy efficiency (and has estimated that we could reduce 40% of our demand by 2030) but doesn’t seem to be inclined to mandate even something as simple as a night time switch off. In the short term, however, it is businesses that stand the most to gain from implementing energy reduction measures, so why aren’t they taking control themselves?

Commercial buildings are increasingly taking advantage of the savings to be made from the adoption of low-energy, high-performance LED lighting, but overlook the additional savings (often 30-40% extra) that can be achieved simply by being able to switch off at night or whenever the building is unoccupied. Doing so should be a no-brainer, it’s saves money, it reduces carbon footprint and (done properly) it will have no negative impact on business operation whatsoever.

So how do you achieve this? You take out the human factor. The reality is that getting people to change their behaviour, particularly when they’re not paying the bills, can be a losing battle. But why rely on people to undertake a function that can be executed quickly and efficiently by modern technology? Control systems can offer time control to match lighting to building use but also presence and absence controls that ensure that lights are not left on needlessly even when the space is in use. Put simply, it can all be done for us.

The UK will have become a net importer of energy by 2015, the imperative to reduce consumption and take the burden off our straining power sector is clear. Turning lights off at night is a very easy place to start. There doesn’t seem to be any movement from our government towards regulating this, but as businesses stand to make considerable energy and cost savings by taking control of their lights, perhaps the impetus should come from there.

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The building in Milton Keynes prior to Allianz taking up the lease, had a number of internal partitions removed and the floor was raised resulting in a low ceiling (2.6m) with poor light distribution. In addition, a metal grid ensured that lights could only be positioned in specific locations across the ceiling, not ideal for the location of desks and work stations. This was the challenge Allianz placed on Light Planet, replace the existing 4 x 18W recessed fluorescent modular fittings with energy saving lights that could improve the overall distribution of light in the space, and be tailored to suit individual work stations. Steve Edwards, Light Planet’s Technical Director had to design a lighting layout that not only allowed for the restrictions imposed by the ceiling layout, but also provided the most uniform distribution of light at an average lux no greater than 500. The installation of 118 LED Edge Lit panels achieved this in place of the existing 146 4-tube fluorescent fittings.

Intelligent lighting control became a must and, working with Open technology, Light Planet designed the scheme to utilize the LIGO control system which uses the DALI protocol to individually control each light fitting. Once installed and commissioned, the system has allowed Allianz to tailor light levels to suit individual’s work stations and maintain an operational load that is 65% of full power.

A single LiGO panel controls the open plan office and two meeting rooms. The system is connected to Open Technology’s engineers over a 3G modem supplied as part of the LiGO panel.  The system has 118 lights, 24 combined light level and PIR sensors and switches.

The lighting is controlled to function in such a way as to: 

• Maximize energy savings.
• Delivering a comfortable working environment.
• Operate on a time profile that reflects working times.
• Switch on and off with occupancy.
• Respond to daylight levels.
• Set to various scenes to match the activity in the meeting rooms.

Overall this has created a more enjoyable working environment whilst delivering considerable reduced energy consumption. The installation of the intelligent LIGO control system has reduced the energy consumption of the office lighting by an additional 35%. This is on top of the 60% energy reduction achieved by replacing traditional T8 modular fluorescent fittings with Light Planet’s LED edge lit panel.

Allianz will continue to monitor the success of this project, from energy saving and personnel feedback, and will work with LightPlanet and Open Technology to implement similar schemes in other buildings throughout the UK.

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LiGO has been installed throughout the station and all lighting is fully automatic.

The LiGO System is now connected to the SW Trains IT infrastructure meaning that a close eye can be kept on the system’s energy performance. Emergency Light test reports are automatically emailed to the FM Desk at the South West Trains.

Work at the countries busiest station Clapham Junction begins this month and six other stations will be completed during this year.

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A Passion for Innovation and Technology

Chris Bedford - Managing Director			Rodney Allen - Sales Manager			Andy Devine - Technical Director
Sam Bedford - Project Engineer			Gavin Ash - Project Manager			James Barton - Project Engineer

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Lights were dimmed or turned off at 12 stations over the festive period.

Stations where the lights were switched/dimmed:

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