Looking into 2012...

What  can we expect in 2012 ? Looking deep into our crystal ball we see several developments both in how the customer responds to the technology and how the technology itself advances.

1)       The market/consumer will become more discerning as they hear more horror stories and yet witness good new projects. The efforts of the Lighting Association to police supplier’s data should soon begin to make an impact.

2)       Customers commissioning new buildings will demand LED lighting as they see good examples.

3)        The costs will not go down in 2012, but lower cost products will come into the market. These should be judged with care and we must rely on third party test data and not that from the manufacturers.

4)       The introduction of advanced technologies such as Chromawhite from Photonstar will show the way to a completely new LED solution. These chips can be tuned to colour temperature and will automatically adjust colour temperature and output as the product ages. These will offer unprecedented stability over the long term.

5)       The range of tasks which can be covered well by LED will continue to develop. Today we can happily replace all low and Hi-bay with LED as well as all standard downlight tasks in home, office, restaurant and shop. By the end of 2012, we shall be replacing 600 x 600 layins as standard.

6)       Many of the best LED manufacturers in the world come from the UK. Buying effective LEDs will not only enhance your project but will reduce the carbon impact of supplying lighting and will continue to create new jobs in Britain.

Leisure Centre LED conundrum

Here’s a conundrum from a leisure centre near us in Norfolk. Really keen to be green, they first approached us in September 2010. All the key areas, such as the gym, reception area, corridors, gift shop and restaurant were lit with halogen dichroics – about 67 in total. After an audit of existing lights we came up with an LED scenario which would see their energy consumption reduced from approximately 6,293kWh pa to around 1,197kWh pa simply replacing these dichroics. A pretty decent energy reduction of over 80%.  This was achieved using mostly 7W LED downlights. And at that stage the capital investment, in lights alone, would have been about £2,400 – excluding installation costs.  Last year the management team were keen to retrofit with the LEDs, but simply didn’t have enough cash stashed away to do it.

Given the challenges of the current economic climate a cautious approach is quite understandable. The leisure team also anticipated that, following the usual pattern of fast moving technologies, LEDs would become cheaper. But, a year on from the original decision new features have become apparent.

Out of the potential variables of energy use (W’s), light output (lm’s) and unit cost (£’s) neither W’s nor £’s have actually changed much – the developments have been in light output. You get more bangs for your buck than you did a year ago. If you require a defined light output and supported longevity, the units themselves are not likely to come down in price until the component prices and production processes evolve.  

One might argue that the gamble taken by the leisure team simply hasn’t paid off: had they made the change back in September 2010 it might have taken 3 years to get to the point where the original investment had been paid back. It will still take 3 years, but they have now spent a whole year with energy costs much higher than they need be. Had they taken a bank loan (if they could get one!) at current interest rates it might have taken them a little over 3 years – but not that much. Given the cost issues it is unlikely that product prices will reduce dramatically in the next year, but electricity costs will continue to climb...

So, the conundrum is: when is the optimum moment for them to make the change?

A cautionary tale from LED land

Once upon a time there was a young property investor who decided to build a hotel. His hotel was in a busy, business area near London. He wanted it to be very fine and worked with a big hotel chain to design it to meet all their standards. But he wanted more than that; he wanted his hotel to use LED lighting technology. He loved the idea of low energy bills and he envisioned some really 21^st century lighting effects in his new hotel. But he knew it was a complicated thing to do – and he respected the challenges new technologies could bring – so he found a special wizard (LED consultant) and shared his idea.

“We can do this, and we can do it well” said his wizard, “here is a design, and a plan and list of exactly the right lights to achieve your dream”.

“Fabulous”, said the young man, “let me show it to the project management company”.

So the project management company looked at the plans and said “We need more: more graphs, and more pictures and more meetings”.

They had more meetings and looked at CAD models of the lights and talked about dimming protocols. And then one day, co-incidentally, they went bust and vanished.

The young man found another project management company. He introduced his LED wizard to them and showed them the design and the plan and the specifications.

“Oooh!” said the new company, sucking their teeth, “we need even more details and meetings and designs.” Which the wizard and the young man very politely provided.

And  then everything went silent.

The LED wizard was worried. The young man’s dream for his lights was not going to be realised in time if they didn’t order the lights before the building was finished. So he rang and emailed the new project management company.

Then one day the new project managers said “Look how clever we are: we have found lights just like the ones you told us about – but they cost much, much less”.

“Are they really the same?” said the wizard – “I’d like to see them.”

But the man who had made the new lights got very angry “ARE YOU CALLING MY LIGHTS RUBBISH?” he shouted, “MY LAWYERS WILL BE CALLING YOU.”

The LED consultant was a brave soul and gently suggested that the young man, the project managers, the designer, the new light supplier and anyone else interested should all get together and turn on the lights to see what they were actually like.

So everyone met in the half-built hotel and they turned on the lights: they looked at the new lights and they looked at the lights originally specified. There was silence.

The project management people said “Wow! We didn’t realise that despite having the same wattage and lumen output the difference between two LEDs could be so big. The beam angle is different, the colour is different, the light temperature is different, the fall of light on the floor is different and they have different life expectations.”

“ARE YOU CALLING MY LIGHTS RUBBISH?” shouted the angry man who had made the new lights.”MY LAWYERS WILL BE CALLING YOU”.

“Well, no,” said everyone, “but we can all see that they will not deliver the design as specified and don’t even offer a close compromise. The young man – who ultimately pays for all of this – will not be getting what he wanted.”

And between each other they wrote many emails blaming and shaming and worrying because they had already ordered masses of the wrong lights.

In other stories someone would appear now with a wand, or a horse or, even a princess – but in our story we still don’t know whether the dimming protocol will work with the LEDs chosen in error – let alone if the young man will get to have his vision realised... another chapter to follow...

LEDs – anticipating the pitfalls and identifying the risks

LED lighting remains unregulated “Wild West” technology with great potential but some enormous risks.

These were poor quality LED’s that had to be taken out of a misguided hotel recently. This is one of three boxes!

Risks:

·         Buying LEDs that fail

·         Buying LEDs from specs and not witnessing the light

·         or change colour after a little use,

·         or start failing because the dimmers are neither compatible or dim

·         or the replacements are not be the same as the original batch

·         or that don’t do what the designer specified

·         or that don’t send out the right colour of light

You cannot send them back because you do not “like” them and expect a refund.

The failure of a light to deliver to the specification may also not be immediately apparent unless every detail is investigated.

This designer specified downlights with a medium beam and lumen output of 600 Lm. The contractor went for a cheaper model which purported to have the same lumen output and beam angle. Unfortunately this was being delivered at the expense of the beam angle (which was much narrower than claimed) The result is this patchy, mottled effect on the floor – not what the designer or client wants to see at all.

How then to avoid the pitfalls?

·         Start with a lighting design that suits the technology.

·         Model the lighting levels to illustrate where the light will go and how good is the light throw

·         Specify lights that you trust will deliver the light for a guaranteed period

·         Ensure trace-ability in the event of failure

·         Establish what are the options at end of life

·         Check that every component of the light will deliver every aspect of the design to the required level. Where you are considering between two apparently identical lights TURN THEM ON and then see how they perform.

If you do not have access to this expertise, use an expert LED specifier and also use an LED experienced electrician. Many claim experience in this technology, few genuinely grasp the issues. Any investment in LED involves a great deal of money. Take care.

Buy the right effective LEDs and you have great lighting for a generation using a fraction of historic energy.

Ian Peter MacDonald  -                MacDonald Tait Light -                November 2011 -  ianpeter@macdonaldtait.com

Select LED lighting

When Edison approached his customers with the first lightbulb, did they go to their existing candle and gas fitting suppliers to ask them how to judge that bulb ?

LED lighting is the current buzzword for an easy route to reducing energy. Simply change your light bulb and you will save energy. The mantra is commonly accepted and household, builders and commercial enterprises are all rushing to make that change.

And yet this is completely unregulated technology. How do the consumers know what to buy ? The product claims “equivalent to 50W halogen downlight, lasts for 50,000 hours, guaranteed for 5 years”.  Let us examine these claims:

1)      Equivalent to 50W halogen. In what respects ? It may mean that the fitting suits your existing 50W fitting. Does it mean that the light output is the same ? Light output is  defined in lumens and a 50W halogen light generates over 800 Lumens. There is not one single LED lamp which generates 800 Lumens. Does it mean that it is a familiar warm light which dims to a satisfying orange glow ? A 50W halogen has a colour temperature of around 2600Kelvin which warms up to around 2200K at a low dim level. No LED lamp on the market today can emulate this. There are LED lights which can achieve a genuine equivalence to a 50W halogen but they are specialist products.

2)      Lasts for 50,000 hours. An LED can last for 50,000 hours - ie around 8 years with the lights on all of the time, but how much light is generated at 50,000 hours and what colour is it ? Unless you know exactly the testing conditions and the anticipated Lumen output reduction rate, unless you understand the heat dissipation mechanism and the anticipated catastrophic  failure rate your LED lights will be a range of different colours and really rather dull in 50,000 hours.

3)      Guaranteed for 5 years.(Some manufacturers claim 10 years). Guaranteed to do what in ten years ? Yes they will probably be on, but how do you assess what is too dark or what colour shift is covered ? What will the manufacturer do when you call up and claim new fittings ? Even if they do replace them, how do you guarantee they are the same colour temperature, the same LED bin, the same light output and even the same bezel colour as the original. After all, replacing one will look rather odd against all the others unless you really have that answer.

The truth is that as in any ground changing technology there is a desperate fight as the established lighting suppliers, who have made their billions exploiting a technology created over a century ago, jostle with the young hi tech engineering  turks who really understand the technology, who push the envelope and who are genuinely offering a brighter, better world of light. We, the modest consumers are merely pawns in this battle.

This leaves the professionals in a bit of a jam. A builder or electrician is obliged to provide Part L2 compliant LED lighting. Supply inadequate LED lights and you get an unhappy customer, or the compliance officer will reject them and new lights will have to be sourced. Architects are constantly swamped with handsome brochures showing handsome LED light fittings. They cost a fortune, yet how does that architect judge how much light, what colour they will be and what dimming system will work, as well as the issues of longevity and colour maintenance.

The light output from every single LED manufacturer is different. How do you know if that light will provide the light you need ?

So, if good LED lights do exist, where do you get them ? The answer is to employ a specialist lighting designer who will layout the lighting and define the exact LED light for that job. The responsibility is then on them to support the claims with proven tested criteria and to manage the guarantee. They can model the light levels and show you exactly what light you will get before you make any purchase. Yes there will be a slight cost - a lighting designer will cost around £400 a day, but that is small beer relative to choosing the wrong LED lights.

Ian Peter MacDonald - MacDonald Tait Light - ianpeter@macdonaldtait.com - 24^th October 2011

Lighting in Museums

In a recent article in the Museum Journal, much reflection was given on the process of changing from the historic tungsten to the LED lighting future. Wisely the article concluded that the museum should proceed with caution. Stephen Cannon-Brookes made the traditional observation that CRI is the key and that traditional lighting therefore satisfies this demand. Certainly high CRI is often desirable but many collections will have different colour temperature depending on the nature of the piece which they are lighting. Certainly in my own dealing s with the National Portrait Gallery they have actually looked for warmer colour temperature in the Victorian rooms and a cooler colour temperature in the contemporary galleries. Stephen is correct today but the CRI accuracy is improving daily with the best LED manufacturers and this will be an issue resolved within two to three years.

LED lighting is a technology ideal for lighting artefact and art, but not only because the temperatures are lower and the energy consumption is so much less. The real benefits are in the controllability which this technology affords. The world now exists in which each light can respond to the natural light levels and adjust output levels accordingly. Now that same light can be tuned to the specific colour demands of the bright contemporary  Marc Quinn piece in a NPG exhibition to the warm tones of a Leighton masterpiece in the subsequent exhibition in the same room. Finally each light can respond to occupancy in the room thus further saving energy. The manufacturers who have developed such flexibility have not yet approached the museum and gallery market, but it does make sense to bring these benefits to a market which so evidently can use them.

And finally the bugbear of the multi chip light source. Despite hours of design commitment from celebrated designers, I struggle to like the look of the large LED lights employed by museums in their large exhibition spaces.  The aesthetic is boxy and the rows of lights may suit Lords and Wembley but not the reflective pantheons of art.

Stephen Cannon-Brookes goes onto observe quite rightly that manufacturers make claims on efficiencies that do not include the system consumption. This lack of certainty even from highly respected familiar names in lighting makes selecting such expensive light sources very difficult. But the future is brightening. The Lighting Industry Federation working with the Lighting Association have drawn up a very useful “Guidelines to specifying LEDs” which at least gives the specifier the questions to ask of the manufacturer and the Lighting Association are drawing up a verification Tick logo which then gives third party authentication to the claims.

So do tread warily, but demand that the manufacturers address these issues. The technology allows it, the manufacturers just need to know there is demand. The consequence will be brighter collections, cooler, more comfortable galleries and much lower energy and maintenance bills.  Health warning - because of this longevity, these manufacturers are only going to get one bite at the cherry and are pushing for immediate adoption….. 

Ian Peter MacDonald is an LED lighting specialist with 25 years   particular experience in Museums

Biting the LED bullet

Enjoyed an amazing evening the Claxton Opera (performing Der Freischutz most excellently) and got chatting to a chat in property management. They had just moved into new offices and he was explaining how excited he had been to be somewhere with insulation, groovy lights, and,he hoped, reduced energy bills. To his horror the most recent bill had come in way in excess of the previous monthly bills. No real surprise: improved insulation coupled with halogen downlights meant that his air conditioning costs had gone up. I mentioned LED (no hard sell, we were at the opera) and he agreed he could see the benefits. Not only could he see the benefits - it would mean he didn't have to either shimmy up onto the desks or get a man in to change each blown bulb (£50 a pop).
So the usual challenge of getting people to buy LED. They understand the value of new LED; they understand the costs of their present solution; and they can see the benefits of changing. But they just don't want to bite the bullet (ref Der Freischutz) and make the investment.
I'm going to send him a Cordata 10 (GU10 replacement) to see if it strikes the right note.

eBay time for LEDs

First toe in the eBay jungle: from time to time we have a surplus of LED stock. Could be that the customer changed their mind at the last moment; could be that the light we specified doesn’t exactly meet the requirements of the room; or could be that the fitting the customer thought they had wasn’t quite as they described it.... in any case an opportunity to use one of the biggest market places in the UK should be worth a shot.

So far I have put together our product description and pictures. The usual LED challenges exist: how to make consumers understand that not all LEDs are equal. There are sellers offering 4 GU10’s for a tenner. Some offering 10 for £22.99. They also claim to be 6W – but provide no information about the lux levels they deliver at 2m; or the real life expectancy; or the precise angle of the beam.

With such a jostle in the market – bright colours; cheap – cheap – cheap prices and random claims (one of my favourites is the site which says their lamps come from a factory where other bulbs get CE approval so theirs must be as good....even though they don’t actually have any accreditation, hummmm) I guess we are left hoping that the customer will nevertheless discover us. That doesn’t seem much of a marketing strategy, but we’ll see.

Thinking about explaining LEDs to my granny

My granny used to know exactly which light bulb to buy for each room in her house: you used 100Watt for the standard lamp in the sitting room; 40Watt for bedside table; 60Watt for corridors; and got a man in to do the fluorescent tubes in the kitchen. When you left a room you turned the lights out and sometime the lamp shade got a scorch mark where the hot bulb had burnt it. A whole other area of confusion existed because there could be two circuits in the house - the one for lamps with small round pins - and the one with big round pins - and the square pins. So, it wasn't really a simpler time, just one where there was a shared understanding that the bigger the number on the bulb the bigger the plug the brighter the light and the hotter it got if you left it on (so, remember to turn the lights off!!!).
Now, if I had to explain to my Granny which lamp she needs to read her paper I am going to have to start sharing the vocabulary of Lumens - "What Watts?", I imaging her saying, "Not Watts really", I reply, "LEDs don't need many of them to get a similar result. So if you think that your 60Watt bulb in the corridor is giving out about 800 Lumens if you used an LED bulb you would need one that used about 15Watts. "I could see to read with a 15Watt bulb... you're not talking about those energy saving bulbs are you; Mavis got some in the supermarket for 10p each. They are rubbish..." hummmm

Perfect LED versus cost dilemma in lighting Barn shop

There is a lovely farm conversion near us in North Norfolk at Wroxham. It comprises several shops, a garden centre and a cafe. It is quite rightly very popular throughout the year.
At the moment they are doing some development work - turning an old office into a food shop. We have been specifiying lights to make the most of the beamed ceiling while showing the food to best advantage. The Track Spot Aero we recommend comes in at £136 a unit: in a big space with some dozen units that makes it quite a big commitment. And on paper it can be hard to see what is so special about really good LED lighting.
We took a sample unit for the customer to see: and the wow! of great LED lighting at only 10W each certainly had a positive effect. He loved it... fingers crossed he makes the jump to better light.

Early Adaptors to LED light

Spike and Toni are our neighbours. We bumped into them on Sunday and were invited in for a drink. Spike brews his own wine using grape juice and a secret blend of herbs. They have an adult games room with pool / poker table, bar with optics , piano with candles and two cockatiels. Toni is a counsellor and Spike is a well known local musician – trombone.

Over a glass of white and some fabulous sounds (Speedometer) we chatted about our business.

“LED’s”, stated Spike, “are the light source of the future. They give out minimal heat; are re-cyclable and use much, much less energy. They are GREAT! – What to you think?”

“Well,” we replied, “you’ve just used all the best bits of our sales pitch – so not much to add really... and the wine is delicious.”

We left wishing we could pick up how to do jazz improv as simply as Spike had understood LEDs.

Job Opportunity for LED Specifier

Business is going well and so we are now looking for some one - or some company - to come and support us with specifiying and designing. As a small company I don't think we are yet in a position to offer full time employment with all the commitment that would entail, but a self-employed specifier would be perfect: some one with a range of interests and enthusiasms in the lighting world; someone with a keen attitude and good eye for detail and product developments; someone prepared to meet the customer and us in either Norfolk or London; someone who is as concerned about delivering top class customer care as we are; oh! and someone who can brew up the perfect cappucino and produce a coffee walnut cake. (I know, the last bit may be wishing for the moon.) Fingers crossed.

One Aldwych Hotel lights up the swimming pool

Congratulations to One Aldwych who have just completed a fabulous lighting design in the hotel's swimming pool area. The task was not without it's challenges - hiding the work from the keep-fit gang in the gym and scaffolding over water to mention two. The guys at B & P Services did a great job and it was worth it in the end!  The results are a clear example of the beauty that can be achieved with high quality LED - and the energy reduction will make a positive difference to the bottom line.