Retrofitting Lighting in Buildings key to Energy Efficiency, Savings
Adrian van Wyk, Managing Director at Referro Systems
In a recent example, the replacement of outdated fluorescent lights at a large industrial client’s facilities with Pure Light LED lights, fitted with built in LMS, reduced their electricity bill from a projected R4,5-million a year, to a mere R193 000 per year, notes Referro Systems, a key distributor of control and automation solutions.
Over the past decade, more companies have come to understand the benefits of retrofitting their industrial facilities’ lighting solutions. “Not only does it hold more environmental benefits, as they significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but these LED lights also have extended working life and of course, slashes electricity bills and overhead costs,” notes Adrian van Wyk, Managing Director of Referro Systems.
Through its partnership with Pure Light LED Products, as official distributor, Referro Systems is able to realise significant energy savings for their clients. “Prior to the Pure Light installation, they were consuming 351kW for lighting. Following the installation, consumption is estimated to dropped to 62kW,” notes van Wyk with even further energy savings based on occupancy and daylight harvesting.
The World Economic Forum’s Transforming Energy Demand report, released earlier this year highlights that retrofitting existing buildings could reduce their energy intensity by almost 40% and that creating more energy efficient buildings offers the potential to reduce global energy demand by 12%.
According to Sean Smith, CEO of Pure Light, few realise that lighting of warehouse and logistics facilities contributes as much as 70% to a business’ electricity bill. “With the latest increases in electricity charges in South Africa, this is particularly relevant,” he notes.
Upgrading to, or retrofitting, Pure Light’s advanced LED luminaires will guarantee significant energy savings while providing improved LUX intensity, contributing to improved productivity, a better working environment and enhanced worker safety while complying with occupational health and safety legislation.
“Customers that opt for an integrated Light Management System can also expect a further 15% saving in cost on their monthly electricity account – a system that optimises when and where lighting is required due to time of day, season, and personnel occupation, switching off unnecessary lighting when it is not needed. (see picture from a real install showing 43% energy savings AFTER installing LED’s but taking advantage of LMS functionality)
Smith notes that retrofitting from fluorescent lights to LED lights also holds significant benefits for those businesses considering a switch to solar. “Changing to a Pure Light installation can save literally hundreds of thousands of rands on a solar installation capital cost, due to a reduced demand requirement from panels, inverters and batteries,” he adds.
In both green and brown fields projects, system designers implement the Pure Light products in standard software program to optimise the positioning and type of luminaires required, ensuring maximum lighting efficiency for a given process or operation.
Smith highlights that Pure Light has also developed innovative service offerings where premises are occupied by tenants who want the cost benefits that Pure Light brings, but face a landlord that shies away from the capital expenditure.
“We can offer a Pure Light installation in the premises occupied by the tenant at no upfront capital cost to the landlord. The tenant, who is responsible for the electricity bill, can enter into a service agreement with us for either a fixed monthly fee or a percentage of the saving achieved by switching to our energy efficient systems,” he says,
Smith says that despite the benefits to customers of local manufacturing, translating to high quality, advanced technology products that have been designed for local conditions and the fact that this offers flexible service options, there are still those who focus solely on the cheapest options, that often are not the low-cost options they initially appear to be.
“The lighting market suffers, like many others, with a deluge of imported poor quality, cheap luminaires that promise quality performance, but seldom performs,” he notes but the Pure Light products are locally certified at SANAS accredited facilities ensuring peace of mind for customers.
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