LED lighting slashes electricity costs for housing association
Lighting loads in communal areas of residential apartments of Wales & West Housing Association have been reduced by 80% following the replacement of lighting with LED fittings. In addition, controls avoiding lighting being on 24 h a day have reduced on times by about 80%. In a typical 2-storey development of 40 apartments, £3000 a year has been cut from the electricity bill.
In addition, the solution offered by CJ Electrical and Ex-Or is helping the organisation meet its environmental commitments and stem the rise in maintenance costs.
The housing association is landlord to 25 000 residents in 110 housing developments across Wales. CJS Electrical of Cardiff and Ex-Or, which specialises in lighting control, are working together to provide new lighting systems in communal areas, which include corridors, reception areas and lift lobbies.
The projects involve replacing inefficient T5 and T8 fluorescent luminaires with high-efficiency LED lamps. They are controlled by Ex-Or Lightspot ultrasonic detectors which instantly switch on lights if someone is about to enter the monitored area and off again when lighting is no longer required. It is estimated that lights are on for only 20% of the time.
At the Cwrt Anghorfa development in Bridgend, the annual electricity bill has been reduced by over 90% from £3275 to £216. Chris Williams, director with CJS Lighting, explains, ‘Landlord lighting is by far the biggest element of electricity use at Cwrt Anghorfa and all the other residential developments in the Wales & West Housing Association estate. On the environmental front, a total of 20.8 t of CO2 per year is being saved at Cwrt Anghorfa, with similar carbon savings at the other developments where the combined LED lighting and control system has been installed.’
There are significant maintenance savings, it being estimated that a traditional 2D fitting would potentially require 40 replacement lamps during the lifetime of an LED fitting.
