Lighting the way to big savings

09 Nov 09

By Shaun Cutler

Shaun Cutler, MD of Raytec, explains how his company intends to persuade planners to make the switch to energy efficient CCTV lighting with a high profile ‘Lighting Amnesty’ campaign...

How much money is being wasted on outdated, energy-hungry security and CCTV lighting across both the public and private sectors, from local authorities and schools to power plants and industrial plants?

This is a question that security companies should be asking because it’s almost certain that thousands of pounds are being thrown away, and tons of needless CO2 generated, by inefficient lamps that give off more heat than light.

It’s impossible to put an exact figure on the waste but the sums we are talking about are huge.

We calculate that when you take into account higher running costs and money spent on replacing bulbs that don’t last very long a typical hospital using 100 CCTV or security lights could be wasting £45,000 per year.

This is based upon 4,400 hours usage per year at 10p kw/hr; with labour costs conservatively calculated at £40 per bulb change (it’ll be much higher if a cherry-picker is needed).

Multiply this across all local authorities, and add in government departments, and the sums being thrown away probably run into millions of pounds – this is before we even take the private sector into account.

We know it’s happening. The challenge for Raytec and our partners in the security industry (installers and consultants) is to get the message through to the planners who could be doing something about it.

This autumn we’ve launched a major new ‘Lighting Amnesty’ campaign, targeting planners with a programme of publicity and information.

We’re doing it now because the timing is right, on two fronts.

First, we are heading for a period of high profile public debate about global warming, the need to reduce CO2 emissions, and the necessity of cutting energy consumption.

In December, the world’s governments will be meeting at Copenhagen to try and agree targets for cutting CO2 emissions.

It will be a leaders’ summit, there will be lots of argument and there will be plenty of warnings about the consequences of failure – all of which will dominate the news.

A problem we can’t ignore

We must all make up our own minds about how serious global warming is, to what extent human activity is responsible, and how urgent the problem is – personally I think it’s something that we can’t afford to ignore.

Because the stakes are so high we should plan for the worst and assume that the problem needs to be taken seriously (and I say that not just because Raytec is focused totally on energy-efficient alternatives to wasteful lighting technology).

There is steadily mounting evidence that polar ice and mountain ice is melting more quickly than in past cycles and that the atmosphere is changing rapidly; scientists are saying that, if anything, their earlier predictions about the effects of global warming have been too conservative.

The Met Office now says it’s possible that average temperatures will rise by a shocking 4 deg C within our lifetimes, never mind our children’s and grandchildren’s.

So environmentalists are warning that December’s Copenhagen summit will be our last chance to reach an international agreement on cutting emissions in time to avert a runaway ‘feedback’ effect.

Our message to public and private sector planners about energy-efficient lighting may be very small by comparison with all this, but it points in the same direction.

Interest

One final observation on this subject … at IFSEC this year Raytec featured a modest ‘green focus’ energy saving section on our stand (complete with a token pot plant!) with the idea of talking to people about the environmental impact of lighting.

We had a message to get across and we also wanted to find out what people in the wider industry thought.

As it turned out, this was one of the subjects that visitors to our stand most wanted to know about. There are a lot of people out there who are very interested in saving energy.

Financial pressure

The second big issue is money. The UK national debt is now at a record high – thanks to the emergency bank bail-outs – and, while complete economic meltdown may have been avoided, the main political parties now agree that public spending has got to be reined-in.

Of course, with an election looming there is going to be a lot of political smoke-screening about where the axe will fall, but economists are warning that local authority budgets are about to come under huge pressure – and very close scrutiny – possibly for the best part of a decade.

So our ‘Lighting Amnesty’ message comes at the right time.

Money could be saved and energy consumption reduced. In helping with those two objectives we are swimming with the tide.

We’re not claiming that CCTV lighting is anything more than a drop in the ocean when stacked up against all the other waste that goes on.

But we are saying that switching to energy-efficient lighting is just one sensible measure, among thousands of other sensible measures that need to be taken, step by step, to tackle these urgent problems.

Benefits of switching

So what are the facts that we’ll be telling public and private sector planners, along with our partners in the security industry?

First, we’re telling them that security installers can provide them with new Raytec low energy lighting solutions which are significantly better than the alternatives.

Raylux and Raymax LED lighting units are now well proven in the field, their electrical consumption is significantly lower, they provide quick-start illumination (no warm up period), deliver a long working life of ten years and they require zero maintenance.

We’ll tell them how long it will take to save money – ie the payback period – when they switch.

For example, in switching to LED illuminators, the user will start to make cost savings within 2 years compared to 500W lights, and in 3 years compared to 300W lights.

So our most important promise to end-users is that we will put a firm figure on their potential savings. We’re offering a free lighting survey, with a detailed report, to all public sector organisations who apply during the ‘Lighting Amnesty’ period.

This means that we’ll arm the planner/manager with the information they need to justify switching to energy-efficient LED illuminators.

And, of course, we’re backing up the case with facts about CCTV lighting which are, by now, well known to most security installers.

If you want to deter intruders the best approach is quick-start, reactive CCTV lighting that is triggered when somebody enters the protected area.

This is much more effective than continuous floodlighting which doesn’t deter and helps criminals see exactly what they are doing.

If you want CCTV to work properly at night, you should ensure proper lighting. In most cases this means choosing either covert infra-red lighting (for black and white images) or overt white-light (for colour images); either way, LED illuminators are the most energy efficient choice.

I’ve said that we’ve got a big job to do in spreading the message to both the public and private sectors and getting old-style wasteful lights replaced, but we see this as a great opportunity for everyone.

For our security installers and other partners the ‘Lighting Amnesty’ offers the prospect of winning new work and forming new relationships. Incidentally, we’re also offering installers a cash-back incentive on all installations undertaken as part of the campaign, to encourage the switch to low energy LED lighting.

For end users it will deliver ongoing cost savings and contribute towards meeting important targets for cutting CO2 emissions.

Our money and energy saving Lighting Amnesty campaign is just a small drop in the ocean, but it’s still a contribution towards an important objective. You’ll probably be hearing a lot about this issue in the months ahead, because one way or another it affects us all.

Raytec has produced a ‘Lighting Amnesty’ energy pack for installers – call Raytec on 01670 52 00 55 for further information.