Like many people, I can happily spend time playing with my kids, have coached sports teams for years, can tune out with a foolish comedy, happily read fiction, can become entranced with a recipe, thrilled at an outdoor experience … e.g., there is much to life outside the study of energy and climate issues. Truly, there is …
With many passions and interests, have to say that I never would have predicted that material like Distributed Energy would ever have become bedtime reading … interesting, intriguing, and worthwhile reading, nonetheless.
As readers of this site’s electrons are well aware, win-win-win solutions that seek to understand and capture the full range of costs and benefits are core to how we should approach our energy challenges and opportunities. Moving toward better light engineering is one of those arenas where sensible action could have meaningful impacts on improved work / living conditions, lower maintenance costs, lower energy costs, and a lighter carbon footprint.
Dan Rafter’s Slashing Lighting Costs, from the January/February 2010 issue, provides a window on the challenge of getting this sort of holistic understanding into building management decision-making.
Discussing Estrella Mountain College and its move into modern lighting, seeking to have ‘squint-free’ students, Rafter reports:
officials … were wise enough to hire someone to focus on their lighting needs.
This is becoming more common, say the manufacturers of lighting products. Facility managers and building owners are starting to pay more attention to their lighting needs. They want their buildings lit as often as possible by natural daylight, lighting systems that consume as little energy as possible, light bulbs that last longer, and they want fixtures that are easy to maintain and repair.
The reason behind this attention is simple: Lighting buildings can be a costly endeavor. For companies in a weak economy looking to save dollars in any way possible, it makes good economic sense to install lighting systems that are efficient and relatively maintenance-free.
The late 20th century model of decision-making about energy efficiency (and green) investments could be described, perhaps, as ‘S&S’: stove piped and short term in nature.
- Stove piped because the investment in energy efficient systems often will come from a different budget than operating savings, thus making the investment more difficult to justify. And, even when savings are factored in, the typical calculation only examines saved energy costs and, more rarely, reduced maintenance costs (fewer light bulb changes). S&S thinking does not examine the full accrued benefits, such as more productive workers and happier residents.
- Short term due to the tendency to demand extremely fast payoffs for energy efficiency investments, often demanding much higher ROIs for the near-certain revenue benefits of internal investment when compared to riskier investments to build business.
many building and facility owners …. remain focused on saving money immediately. Instead of paying a bit more for a more efficient lighting system that may save them considerable money over the years, [they] are still choosing to purchase the least expensive lighting fixtures and bulbs that they can buy.
The S&S challenge is one that those seeking to help businesses and organizations move from 20th to 21st century lighting often confront and develop paths to overcome.
The good news story is that, increasingly, the value of a holistic approach is penetrating into facility decision-making. Rafter uses Howard County, Maryland, as an example:
Like most government entities, Howard County, MD, is looking to save money. Budgets are tight, and county officials are looking to slash every expense possible.
Fortunately, the county may have found a way to do this by installing energy-efficient light fixtures throughout county government buildings.
The county has already installed T5 SmartFixture fluorescent lights, manufactured by Arcalux, in a county courtroom and a backup 911 center. The county will also install the lights, replacing both T8 and T12 lamps, in its main 911 center, a project slated to begin this November.
Depending on how these lights function, the county may replace more lights in its buildings with the higher-efficiency SmartFixture fluorescents, which provide annual energy savings of 25% to 50%, says Richard Lee, energy manager for Howard County.
“We did our math for this project,” says Lee. “Money is tight. This project had to fight off other competing projects. There are only a few projects like this alive in the county right now. We figured out that with this investment, with this fixture, this project will be paid off in just a few years. Economically, it’s a strong project for us.”
This very high payoff, that justified investing in better lighting amid tight financial times, seems to have moved forward without consideration of perhaps the highest value result of the lighting installation: it could save lives due to a better functioning 911 service.
For Lee in Howard County, it’s also helped that the new fixtures in the county’s backup 911 center actually provide a better quality of light. “Workers here, of course, deal daily with life-and-death emergencies. They need to see clearly the computer screens at which they sit. The new lights provide far less glare We commonly hear the workers complaining about glare on these larger screens. That has jeopardized our productivity. The employees get headaches. These new light fixtures, though,” he says, have reduced glare significantly.”
That sort of productivity benefit (which can apply to schools, offices, factories, etc …) should truly be the starting point (in the forefront) in all these discussions but, unless the starting point is that ‘the light is bad and we need better lighting’, this issue almost becomes an afterthought.
Rafter provides a window on some of the options in the lighting world, the challenges faced in fostering more aggressive (and, well, better) decisions in total ownership terms, and how some in the business are seeking to overcome the challenges to seize the opportunities. Not the first time that opening Distributed Energy provided a worthwhile read.