With the rising costs of energy its a no brainer to look at switching your lighting system to a more energy efficient model.
Here we discuss what a lighting audit is and what the aim of the assessment is.
Lighting Audit
The requirements for a commercial property are different for a residential property typically with the payback being faster for a commercial property than for a residential property where the usage is typically much lower.
A lighting audit consists of a lighting assessor going around the property and identifying the following;
The lighting audit is to assess the energy, potential cost saving and carbon reduction benefit of changing from one type of lighting system to another. Typically this would be changing from incandescent or fluorescent technology to LED. In most situations the lighting audit surveyor will also identify whether there are opportunities to retrofit the existing fittings or whether it is more advantageous to simply replace the fittings all together.
The assessor will also identify where spaces are over lit and where fittings can be removed to reduce the over all quantity of lighting points.
The assessor will also identify the controls methodology and usage of the spaces to identify if there are advantages to automate and control the lighting more effectively, this can be implemented with relative low cost solutions using blue tooth and wireless technology.
For most people a lighting audit is primarily aimed at reducing their energy demand and thus costs however its still important that good quality lighting is maintained so fittings with a high quality CRI (See blog post here: https://lightingdesignstudio.co.uk/cri-lighting-design/) are suggested to ensure that the over all quality of the scheme is maintained and that where dimming is important that a good level of dimming can be achieved.
The Lighting audit will then provide;
Typical grants are available for commercial projects and will provide a percentage of the value of the up front value of the project. With the rest being payed for by the end client.
With some projects the pay back for replacement to a new technology is very fast, with paybacks of 6-8 months. Where as for others where the usage is less it is longer.
If you are interested in getting an independent high quality lighting audit carried out on your property please get in touch to see how we can help.
