How green is your light?

Corporate India, it seems, has at last woken up to the need of the hour: to save energy. Peep into any big office, or even a mall, and you see most of them using energy-efficient lights. Says JC Joneja, a marketing consultant at Ankur lighting: ?There is an increase in purchase of LED-based (Light Emitting Diodes) lights, T5s (latest version of fluroscent tube) or the CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lights) at our showroom, and most of our customers are high-end ones.? Joneja adds that there is a spurt in demand for LED lights since they are also used for a wide array of purposes, from decorations in hotels and conference halls to dance-floors, foot lights and for outdoor lighting.

Scrimping on energy usage has been talked about ever so often now. That demand for power far outstrips supply is also old news. The issue now is to look at ways to conserve whatever little power there is and finding ways to be energy efficient. Simply put, energy efficiency means using less of it (energy) to perform the same function.

And, green lighting is one way to ensure this. It involves the maximum utilisation of building design, materials, colours, light sources, electronics, systems, etc, to make lighting effective and energy conservative.

?We use only T5 lighting with electronic chokes in all our Spencer?s Stores across India as it saves up to 40% electricity and the lux (unit of lighting) levels are superior compared to conventional lighting systems,? says Samar Singh Sheikhawat, vice-president-marketing, Spencer?s Retail Limited. Singh adds: ?A GLS (General Lighting Service) consumes 40W whereas the power consumption is just 28W with T5s. In specialised areas, we don?t use white lighting. For instance, we don?t use them for where fruits and vegetables are placed. Instead, we use yellow lighting for better visual appeal in these areas. Everywhere else in the store we use white lighting. Most of the lighting is being imported from China.?

Nitesh Kumar, president (marketing) of Taneja Developers & Infrastructure Ltd (TDI) too vouches for ways to ensure energy efficiency. Says he: ?At TDI, we use CFL and high lumen (light) energy efficient MH lights. CFLs are four times more efficient and last up to 10 times longer than other lights. They are cost effective, save electricity, reduce CO2 emissions, sulfur oxide and high-level nuclear waste and at the same time are high-quality lights.?

Anuj Puri, country head and chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle Megharaj (JLLM), one of the leading real estate services and money management firms says: ?We use CFL-miniature versions of full-sized fluorescents that generate illumination on par with common incandescent lights. We also use mirror-optic reflector units, which spread available illumination more uniformly over wider areas and reduce the glare factor.? According to the level of requirement for illumination, at JLLM, they also use movement sensors in meeting rooms and rest rooms. These sense the presence of occupants and switch on and off accordingly. They also use Occulux sensors, which electronically judge the requirement of lighting required vis-?-vis available natural sunlight and the current occupancy, and adjust illumination accordingly throughout the day and night.

Lighting major Philips India recently launched the country’s first comprehensive LED lighting range for the home segment. The new range of products includes DecoLED, LED Candle, LED Nitelite, LED Flash Light and the Imageo range. Says Mathew Job, marketing director, lighting division, Philips Electronics India: ?LEDs would be the next wave of lighting technology. These provide a much higher colour saturation and brilliance than by filtering conventional light sources. Different colour effects are now possible from the same light source. Prior to this, LEDs have been used in many architectural and commercial applications.?

LEDs have a number of other advantages as well. They have a longer lifetime, are compact in size and flexible in design, boast digital control programmability, the light output is without any ultra violet and infra red radiations and are very safe because of low voltage and low heat operations.

A survey of 1,000 households in Delhi conducted by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) concluded that if the residential sector decides to replace their bulbs with CFLs, and their tube lights and electromagnetic ballasts with T5 and electronic ballasts, households can save up to 25% in their monthly electricity bills. These savings could be higher if the households have a low air-conditioning requirement.

Today, energy-efficient lamps ? Tubular fluorescent T5 and CFL ? are made by Philips, Osram, GE and many others. Bajaj Electricals recently launched a whole range of LED products. Starting from 1w LED to 21w (cluster) LEDs, the company introduced these energy-saving products that are also extremely environment-friendly. ?We are also introducing lighting control, by which a customer can save energy, create different moods, and also have daylight harvesting,? says

R Ramakrishnan, executive director Bajaj Electricals Ltd. He adds: ?These lights are not only bright but also enhance the spirit of those working under them. Lighting actually changes the office environment and it saves energy to a large extent.?

A growing number of architects too are today advocating the use of such lights. Navin Kishen, a Delhi-based architect, feels that the appreciation of energy conservation and in turn green buildings and lighting is widespread in the trade. Says he: ?It would be difficult to quantify such growth, but this is relevant to the construction and other user industries and is being promoted. I think the latest trend is more and more adoption of energy-saving lamps and fittings, including all accessories and optimal design to conserve energy as far as possible.?

Tanuja, another city-based architect and a partner at Kanvinde Rai & Chowdhury agrees: ?My concern is not just to design buildings that are green, but also to educate people about efficient use of energy. Quantification of energy saving achieved on a particular project assists in making the impact far greater. However, going by the latest trends, I think that a green building would become the conventional base building very soon in the future.?

Growth figures look impressive. Green lighting today is estimated to be growing at the speed of about 100% per year. Of course the base is still very small, at a total installation value of about Rs 100 crore, says HS Mamak, president Emeritus, Indian Society of Lighting Engineers (ICLE). Commercial buildings were the first to accept this concept because of their environment concerns, but now they are being extended to hotels, hospitals and institutions. As far as lighting is concerned, green lighting is measured against wattage per square metre as against the traditional method of Lumen (light) per square metre. The lower the wattage per sq metre, the greener the building. This of course is without making a compromise in the levels of lighting required by the accepted standards, adds Mamak.

When it comes to the price tag too, incandescent lamps are the most economical, while the metal halide lamps are more expensive. People in the domestic market prefer to use GLS lamps because of their price, but those who are energy conscious prefer to use CFLs as the operating cost of this lamp is substantially lower, points out Joneja.

Perhaps a look at the long term would make people take the wise decision of settling for energy-efficient lights.