Steven Rosen, principal of Available Light, Salem, Mass., adds much of his education comes from lighting manufacturers. “Most of the education that is very current comes from manufacturers because they’re the ones down in the trenches trying to make solutions, like LED, a commercially viable strategy for lighting,” he says. Rosen belongs to the New York-based Illuminating Engineering Society, which has a broad membership, including manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers, individuals working for utilities and energy services, and government and education professionals.
Rosen also relies on government organizations, like the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash., which is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, for education. “It has been conducting a lot of studies about use of LEDs in the marketplace, and there’s lots of very useful information on the lab’s website.” Rosen adds association and manufacturer websites also can be a great resource for building owners and facility managers to research lighting technologies and trends before contacting a lighting designer.
Step No. 2: Achieve A Smart Retrofit
Once an experienced lighting designer has been hired, it is important the designer listens to the client, essentially working a “story problem,” Minard says.
“A lighting designer should know how to propose various options from most expensive to most economical,” he notes. “It’s not always easy and it’s different with every client. I often have to be creative to achieve what the client is looking for within his or her budget. I also must be very honest and explain what sacrifices can be made and share all the information with the client, so once the project is being installed there aren’t any surprises.”
The most common approach to lighting retrofits is to replace lamps and ballasts. “The only time that doesn’t make sense is, for example, in a space with the same lighting layout from the 1960s when there was a much higher standard for light-level requirements and the fixtures had a less efficient lumen distribution,” Minard says.
Lighting replacements often are guided by the program requirements of the space. “You really have to look at what is existing because there’s a lot of outside factors that go into it,” Minard adds. “A warehouse with a 25-year-old lighting system may no longer be functional because items have moved around in the warehouse and the space needs more light based on new tasks. In that situation, we need to know whether it’s a lighting project or an energy-savings project. If the desire is for more lighting, we can do a new design
based on the floor plan and guarantee some savings with more efficient light sources and the use of controls. But if the building owner wants to save energy and doesn’t want to address light levels, then a simple one-for swap is the most straightforward approach.”
The building owner/facility manager may need to invest more money upfront to achieve the light levels and energy savings he or she wants in the long-term. “It’s pretty easy to get an affordable lighting retrofit but perhaps it doesn’t look so well or doesn’t last as long as you might expect,” McMasters says.
This is when lighting designers must be creative, as Minard says. For example, adding sensors on certain fixtures in areas that aren’t highly utilized can achieve more savings, minimizing the length of the payback. “Lighting controls are a major part of the retrofit equation,” Rosen adds. “For example, if there’s a lot of daylight entering an office space, a sensor should dim or turn off lights near windows.”