LED Lighting in Art Galleries and Museums

At last a lighting technology has arrived which can genuinely do it all. Yes it can save all those maintenance hours changing light bulbs, it uses less than half the energy consumed by “energy saving” compact fluorescent technology and because each lighting element is a semi conductor, it can be controlled with ease. It also projects no Infra red and no Ultra Violet, the two specific elements which damage art and artefacts. What is more is that the bit that emits lights is also very, very small. Having said all that this technology is very, very new.

An art gallery really needs lights that do not need changing - often the light sources are very high and require at least two people, and often scaffolding to change one light. They are obliged by law to show their energy consumption and are therefore keen to reduce that energy bill. They have a range of items in their collection - some of which would show to best effect in a warm light, others in a cooler light, all needing to be as near to daylight in colour accuracy to project the artefacts to best effect. Most importantly all light sources damage the artwork and so much effort is made to reduce the amount of light on the actual collections - please see the British Galleries in the V&A or the Smithsonian Museum of America to witness where light levels are so poor that the much prized artefacts can be barely made out.

Recognising these enormous benefits the museum and gallery markets are piling into this new solid state - LED lighting. The energy reductions are dramatic and the lights do not fail. Furthermore there is no damage being done to the artwork. And yet to my judgement the galleries where these are installed completely fail to light the work sympathetically. The colour temperature is uniformly cold, the narrow beam angles make for a “hot” spot right in the middle of the cherished art work with much lowers light levels over the remainder of the work, and the light fittings themselves are astonishingly ugly with a series of white lights glaring.

How has this come to pass? Given that the technology can deliver all the stated benefits and that the payback certainly justifies the investment, why is it that so many sites have bought into compromised solutions?  The answer seems to be that the savings benefit is what has driven the change and not the aesthetic demands nor a complete understanding of what the technology can offer. It is considerably easier for a Building Services team to turn to their old supplier of art lighting and ask them for LED art lighting than it is for them to really learn up on the technology and understand how to assess what the technology can deliver and who can deliver it. The real experts on this technology are not the great brand names of historic lighting but electronics specialists dotted around the country - yes the UK has some of the very best thinking and expertise in the world.

The answer must be for the curatorial teams and building services teams to engage with the thinking of the technology experts. Both parties can then truly understand what each needs and what each can offer. Once each understands the other, clear specifications can be drawn up which determine the criteria required. Only then should we be commissioning LED lighting which genuinely suits the extraordinary collections we enjoy and the artworks they hold.

Ian Peter MacDonald, Norwich, June 2012

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

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.

How to light a pub effectively with LED lights

Lighting a pub is a well trodden process. At Front of house a dimming system allows the pub to adjust the light levels to suit the ambience required for an intimate evening drink or a bright lunchtime meal with friends and colleagues. Typically this light is shed by downlights and ceiling mounted spotlights using halogen dichroic lights throwing warm, pools of light onto the table tops. Wall lights with clear incandescent 40W candles provide a stylish light source from behind elegant shades. The bar counter is lit from small downlights which provide plenty of light for the business transaction of pouring drinks and handing over the correct change. Behind the bar bright downlights keep the way clear and spotlights and downlights in tilt light fittings throw light onto the bottles showing the range of drinks on offer. Often a fluorescent tube sits out of view behind the bottle gantry throwing a light up the wall behind, silhouetting the bottles and illuminating the appealing colours of the liquid therein. The wooden boards or elegant carpet at the entrance and on the way to the lavatories are lit by downlights that are not dimmed and the lavatories themselves have either halogen downlights or large 2D CFL units providing the right light levels. These do not dim. There is no need to dim the lights in the lavatory. 

Well trodden and familiar though this is, it is a path full of headaches. The fittings break, the lightbulbs always blow, the heat from the lights burn the heads of the staff, as well as sometimes actually igniting the actual pub, the lights are of fragile glass and a danger in a food and drink dispensing environment, but most of all these lights are extremely expensive to run. Every single 50W downlight in a pub is costing at least £35 a year in energy. Add up all of the lights on the site and the lighting alone is costing around £2,000 pa in a small pub and up to £8,000 in a larger site. With electricity bills predicted to rise by 60% in the next 3 years and Government charging £12 for every Tonne of CO2 emitted, the costs of this lighting is too high.

Are new technologies the answer ?

Over the last few years two new technologies have arrived to help the pub save energy. The initial source was the “Low-energy” or compact fluorescent lamp. Projecting an unfamiliar blueish light from a bulbous or tube like lamp these lights do use much less energy but are not at all liked by the cutomer. Furthermore they contain Mercury. Sure not alot of it, but research at Stanford University illustrated that the Mercury contained in one single lamp could render 30,000 Litres of water undrinkable.

The second new light source is LED light but this source too seems to come laden with issues. The key problems are that most LEDs on the market look funny, emit not very powerful light, the colour is rather blue and they cost a lot.

Lighting is hugely important to the atmosphere of a pub, and therefore to the appeal and subsequent success of that pub. How do you retain all of the lighting qualities which you need and yet use less energy and get rid of all of these headaches ?

 The answer does lie in one of these new technologies – but you can only benefit fully from this if you think about lighting in a new way. Lighting was always breaking and you simply headed to the shop and bought a new bulb. That old bulb was thrown away and sent to landfill, hopefully not cutting anyone’s finger on the way. That old bulb was a low cost disposable consumable product from an age when the cost of electricity did not matter. To get the answer open your mind to a world in which you put in the right light once and it works consistently for ten years. To get the answer you must recognise that by spending more in 1985 to purchase your Mercedes you still have a car which works beautifully but your neighbour’s new Hillman Imp which he purchased for peanuts in 1985 died in 1989. You are beginning to see the new light. In this new world you will need to spend more money to get the right light, but that light will last and save you enormously. A pub we are currently working on spends £1700 a year on lighting. Working with us he will save £5,000 over five years. The estate has 120 sites and the investment will save well over £1.100,000 over the next ten years.

 The lighting type that will work is good LEDs. We have already observed that “most LEDs look funny, emit not very powerful light, and the colour is rather blue”. That is the case with most LEDs but good LED deliver enormous benefits without these weaknesses. Good LEDs retain their light levels for 50-80,000 hours – IE 15 years of typical use in a pub where the lights are on from 7am until 1 am. Good effective LEDs use about 1/5^th of the energy of a halogen bulb and about 1/2th of the energy of a Low energy bulb. Good LEDs have a sympathetic colour temperature which suits your required task. Good LEDs run at about 70° C. You can hold an LED lamp. Good LEDs are entirely recyclable. Good LED lights need simply be refitted at end of light. Good LEDs can amortise the carbon emitted in their manufacture and lifetime over 15-30 years.

Good LEDs can deliver all of the benefits defined here, but it is extremely difficult to find good LEDs from your existing light source. The source for the LEDs which can deliver these benefits is through an independent LED specialist whose job it is to get you the right solution which will provide these benefits for the period specified. The specialist knows where to find the answer to the specific challenges of your project and has tried and tested the solutions.

And how can we prove these extraordinary benefits are real ?

Visit the following sites and simply ask their management  - Visit the lovely Suffolk town of Woodbridge and go to the pretty Crown Hotel on the corner of the Square. Next time you are in Covent Garden visit the busy American Diner called Maxwells and simply ask for Salvo. He can show you the lighting and happily explain the benefits of working with LEDs. For a grander hotel visit Marriott’s Marble Arch hotel or the RadissonBlu hotel in Portman Square in London. If you in Scotland speak with Brian at the King’s Manor in Musselburgh or over in Western England talk with John Clifford at the 4* Blunsdon House in Swindon. These sites each champion getting good LEDs for their new lighting and are saving a great deal of money in doing so.

Finally, does it need to cost so much ?

The answer is a simple “yes” if you want good LEDs which deliver these benefits, but it need not come out of your pocket. For smaller pub chains with sales of less than £34 million and fewer than 250 staff the Carbon Trust will offer an interest free loan for changing to this new technology, but only if the supplier is reputable. Larger companies can access finance from various sources which will allow for an immediate saving or will simply invest from their own funds. With a Return on Investment of around two years for even the best LED solutions this represents an extremely efficient use of capital.

Ian-Peter MacDonald. MacDonaldTait Light. ianpeter@macdonaldtait.com Tel: 01603 -788448