By Joe Knisley, Senior Editorial Consultant
IT champions drive integration to narrow the expertise gap. integration sottware Information technology (IT) Network integration Set implementation and maintenance policies, IT compliance, portai strategies, etc. Demand response programs and smart-grid applications Cloud computingsoftware as a service Growing convergence Source: Frost & Sullivan
ROAM is the total streetlight solution. • Reduces energy costs • Reduces maintenance costs
Understanding lighting controls.
Lighting control can be defined as hardware — and software — systems that regulate the intensity level of the light output in response to a command or action. Today's lighting controls fit into four main categories, according to their size and function: 1. Distributed networked systems offering total lighting control management. 2. Scalable panel systems using lowvoltage, mechanically held, single- and double-pole latching relays. 3. Architectural/commercial control systems handling a variety of control applications and using input devices that vary from keypads to touchscreen controllers. 4. Networked devices and wall box dimmers. In aggregate, this equipment can provide occupancy/vacancy control, daylight harvesting, time scheduling.
hese days, building owners and facility managers have important reasons to use the most efficient lighting equipment and control systems. A new study prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, Calif., indicates that today's lighting control techniques can reduce lighting energy an average of 24% to 38% in commercial buildings. Because building new power plants is prohibitively expensive in most every
LIGHTING & CDNTR"«
Lighting Controls for Intelligent Building System Integration
Total light management represents the single greatest opportunity for energy savings in commercial buildings
locale, energy-starved states, such as California, are demanding significant reduction in energy consumption over the next decade. For example, California's Assembly BiU 32 requires that commercial buildings reduce their energy consumption 50% by 2018. To promote ongoing reductions in electrical energy use, local, state, and federal energy codes are continuously becoming more restrictive. The ASHRAE/ IESNA Standard 90.1-2010, "Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings," which must be adopted by all states in the United States by 2013, requires not just turning off lighting in unoccupied spaces, but also multilevel dimming for most spaces — no longer are exemptions granted for spaces that have occupancy sensors. It also requires automatic multilevel daylight control for day-lit zones, skylight zones greater than 900 sq ft, and side-lighting zones greater than 250 sq ft. The standard's automatic shutoff control requirements must be met if the lighting alterations in an existing buuding involve the replacement of more than
C8 E C G M October 2012 • www,ecmweb,com
LIGHTING & CONTROL
10% ofthe connected lighting load. This rule greatly expands the application of the new ASHRAE standard into existing buildings. A recent news story highlights the importance of lighting and controls in the design and construction of buildings. The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), New York, is joining forces with the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), Arlington, Va., to exchange information and provide standards development in intelligent building systems, energy efficiency, and sustainability initiatives. This agreement promotes a true integration of lighting systems and communications/controls and serves as a step toward achieving truly highperformance buildings, or "intelligent" buildings (see Standards Development on page C16). Thus, we can look forward to having the lighting systems of tomorrow being able to communicate with other building systems in an interactive manner. A scientist and energy-efficiency lighting expert at LBNL's Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Francis Rubenstein did a study using a federal buuding as the research model. It showed that occupant-responsive lighting and personal controls resulted in 40% less lighting energy use than an energy-code compliant baseline system that had low power density but was manually switched. Rubenstein believes that fluorescent lighting will continue to dominate the general lighting market and that, in the near-term future, solid-state LED and fluorescent lighting will coexist in hybrid systems — in combination with advanced lighting controls, achieving vast improvements in light efficiency. However, let's look at the basic technology of lighting controls first.