Osram believes that the Building Regulations Approved Documents L1 & L2 can provide the basis of an opportunity for the building and lighting industries to work together in partnership:
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Graham Skeldon, Technical Product Manager for lamp manufacturer Osram, thinks that the revised Building Regulations will help forge a much closer working relationship between the building sector and lighting industry, while encouraging the trade to think in terms of energy efficient lighting at a much earlier stage of building design.
Performance targets for the conservation:
The building industry is now aware of the revisions to the Building Regulations that came into force in just two weeks ago on the 1st April 2002. The new Approved Documents L1 and L2 detail performance targets for the conservation of fuel and power in buildings (industrial, commercial and residential) and are in line with the Government's commitment for the reduction of carbon emissions through its Climate Change programme.
Most buildings in the UK currently consume more energy than they really need to and indirectly contribute to our much referenced greenhouse gas emissions. This clearly needs remedying and the UK Government, along with other environmentally-conscious nations around the world, has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 12% by 2010. This represents a saving of 1.3 million tonnes of carbon emissions per annum. In addition, the current Government has its own manifesto commitment to reduce these by a further 20%.
The role of lighting needs to be elevated:
All too often in the trade, the lighting side of a building project tends to fall way down the list of priorities and the choice of lighting is often left until the last minute and determined by what is left in the project budget. Sadly, this means that low-cost and low-efficiency lighting is installed, which provides little long-term benefit to the occupier of the building who has to then continue to pay unnecessarily high utility bills. When you consider that lighting now accounts for around 30% of all of the energy used in buildings, it is clear that the role and importance of lighting, particularly energy efficient lighting, needs to be elevated much further up the building agenda.
While it represents only a small, but important part of the revisions, the role of more efficient lighting in new and refurbished buildings will be forced into the spotlight with the implementation of the new Regulations next year.
A focus:
The intention of this discussion is not to dissect every aspect of the Approved Documents on lighting, but it is useful to focus on those areas where the building and lighting industries can start to work much more closely together.
The new lighting requirements are split into two Approved Documents - L1 for residential or domestic dwellings and L2 for office, industrial and storage buildings. The aim of both documents is to reduce the amount of energy being used in buildings, but although not part of the revision, it will also help provide additional benefits such as lower maintenance costs and an overall better illuminated working environment.
The Approved Document L2 for commercial, industrial and storage buildings gives specific luminous efficacy targets for building engineers to aim for. The requirement applies only to buildings and parts of buildings where more than 100m2 of floor area is served by artificial lighting. The means of meeting the requirement is to provide lighting with an initial efficacy averaged over the whole building of not less than 40 luminaire-lumens/circuit watt. This way of assessing the efficacy takes into account the luminaire efficiency and the power losses in the associated control gear. It will also allow for some degree of flexibility in the choice of luminaries and light sources.
For other types of buildings, the installed lighting capacity should be at least 50 lumens/circuit watt. This can be achieved by having 95% of the installed lighting load using the following types of lamps:
· High pressure sodium, metal halide or induction (fluorescent) lamps
· Linear fluorescent T5 and T8 in excess of 11W
· Linear fluorescent 8 ft. T12
· Compact fluorescent in excess of 11W
· Any other lamp of more than 50 lumens/circuit watt
The lamp industry has for several years now been promoting these high luminous efficacy lamps for most interior lighting applications. With the help of the new Building Regulations, it is hoped that a closer working relationship will now develop, with the building industry conferring much more regularly with lamp and luminaire manufacturers for detailed advice on suitability and luminous efficacy of light sources and luminaires.
Recommendations for limits on control gear losses:
All the lamps listed above require control gear for their operation. Efficient control gear means lower circuit power and the means to more easily achieving the target average luminaire efficacy. The Approved Document L2 also provides recommendations for limits on power losses of control gear for different lamp ratings. In recent years, manufacturers of high frequency electronic control gear have made huge investments to produce reliable and very efficient products that should be specified, where appropriate, for all luminaires for future building projects.
It is also recommended that lighting systems make better use of daylight where possible, which will make building designers think about when the lighting is really needed. The inclusion of time switches, presence detectors and daylight-linked controls will all help to reduce the power demand in the building. This is taken into account in the targets of the Approved Document L2, in that their application helps in meeting the minimum average efficacy of 40 luminaire-lumens/circuit watt.
L1 specifies number of fixed locations
As far as residential dwellings are concerned, Approved Document L1 specifies the number of fixed locations relative to the size (ie: number of rooms in the home) for energy efficient lamps, recommending that they are installed in the most commonly used rooms - hallways, kitchens, living areas. Lamps must have a luminous efficacy greater than 40 lumens/circuit watt, with linear fluorescent and compact fluorescent lamps recommended as light sources and standard incandescent lamps strongly discouraged - a move which hopefully will see these energy inefficient lamps being gradually replaced by a far more efficient lamp technology.
Pressure to design more interesting interior lighting:
The move to CFLs and other smaller light sources for domestic settings, will put pressure on the luminaire industry to design more diverse and interesting interior lighting, such as downlights, wall sconces and local task lighting and encourage the move away from the traditional centrally-located lamp socket. As well as more innovative design, we will also see an improvement in the overall atmosphere and ambience of homes, making them more attractive and pleasant places to live.
The lighting requirements in the new Approved Documents L1 and L2 of the Building Regulations are very welcome and the lighting industry hopes for an enthusiastic response from the building industry over the coming years. Some significant and important steps have been taken in improving lighting for all of us, but more importantly it will be the first sign that lighting as a whole is taking less of a back seat and more of a front-line role in the building industry. Lighting will clearly play a key part in helping us to reduce carbon emissions from our power stations over the next decade, so let's treat it with the respect it deserves and encourage the industry as a whole to place it at the top of its agenda.
Osram Ltd.,
Osram House
Waterside Drive, Langley,
Berkshire SL3 6EZ
Tel: 01744 812 221
Fax: 01744 831 900
Web: www.osram.co.uk
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