How Can Smart Lighting Save Money & Energy?

We're all too aware of the energy crisis and the soaring costs at the moment.

But how can we help reduce the cost of simply keeping the lights on, and save energy in the process?

Over the years, we have seen the optimisation of LEDs, as they delivered huge energy savings compared to the previously installed incandescent and fluorescent lights.

As a result, the lighting control industry lay dormant for many years because companies were able to save vast amounts by just switching light bulbs; hence control was no longer an attractive option for energy or cost saving as the comparable savings versus an LED upgrade were minuscule.

However, recent changes to Part L of the Building Regulations mean newer, more considered building regulation specifications are finally starting to be deployed.

Alongside this is the net zero commitment and increasingly mandated ESG scoring requirements. Therefore, not only are businesses wanting to save money, but they also need to save energy and carbon.

This has caused lighting control to come to the fore once again. Upgrading lighting control systems can deliver energy savings of up to 30-50%, and the ROI payback can be realised very quickly when maintenance costs for older systems with no insights are considered. Integration of lighting data with the BMS allows the whole building to be managed from a single source, further reducing costs.

Features such as daylight saving can cause artificial light to dim down when natural light in a specific space is at a high enough illuminance. This saves energy as it maximises natural resources automatically.

It can integrate with building platforms to form part of the building-wide energy management programme, and with digital twin technology, it can even simulate changes and aid with improvement plans to enhance energy efficiency further.

At amBX, our sophisticated lighting control software was developed to solve the issue outlined above. It is open, interoperable, hardware and protocol agnostic; it is based on digital twin architecture for fast commissioning and real-time feedback and contains vast lighting logic developed over the years with the likes of Cisco and Molex.

There has never been a more urgent need to save money and run efficient operations, and we are passionate about enabling our partners to achieve this in whatever way possible.

Lighting control enables improved management of a building; by utilising the lighting network, sensors and other IoT devices can be embedded, and data can be captured throughout the building, utilising a pre-existing reliable network. This is something that is especially beneficial for retrofits, which we know the bulk of the market is.

In addition, having the ability to use virtual sensors allows any trigger to be used as a sensor, e.g., someone turning on their PC or scanning the access control system. Current building hardware and systems can have dual functionality and provide extra data points as well as act as triggers to turn the lights on/off based on predefined parameters. Collecting data in this way avoids installing submetering hardware which, of course, saves further cost and embodied carbon. All of this data is normalised and can be easily and securely sent to the cloud, another platform, our own UI (which can be white-labelled) or to a third party.

Having true interoperability and bridging the gap between lighting and other building systems leads to the highest cost and energy savings. True insights can be gained, and automated actions can even be set up to ensure the building operates more efficiently.

At amBX, we often work with MSIs, smart building platforms and consultants to help them deliver additional value through our integration software.

We remove the translation hardware other integration companies sell with their proprietary software (and it is the hardware that tends to be a big bulk of the overall price). For example, in a recent integration project in London, the customer required lighting integration with the building and the cloud. They engaged with the leading integration solution, which charged them for conversions for data sets per device, which therefore cost the client £52,000. If amBX had been specified, the cost would have been dramatically reduced.

If amBX had been specified (top-down) as the lighting control, this conversion would have been free.

If amBX was added for integration alone, the cost would be a single licence; therefore, the saving on this section of the project could have been the entire £52,000.

The full lighting quotation for this project was £180,000. Using amBX instead would have achieved at least a 29% saving for this smart building project.

But adding emergency lighting and standard lighting control on top of the integration can really make a difference, resulting in a combined saving of up to 48% on the lighting part of a project!