California Energy Commission: Developing Lighting Strategies - Integrated Office Lighting
(May, 2008) - An effective strategy to reduce the lighting power density in offices while maintaining high quality lighting can have huge energy saving potential for California’s one billion square feet of commercial office space. Task/Vertical/Ambient lighting optimizes lighting power density through a reduction in overhead lighting levels and provides users the ability to control light levels for the task at hand.
In this project, Finelite Inc. developed a Personal Lighting System (PLS) using light emitting diode (LED) technology. Consisting of individual undercabinet fixtures and task specific desk lamps distributed throughout the work space provided even illumination at less than 21 watts per office. Combining the task lighting system with complementary low ambient and vertical illumination achieved an integrated office lighting solution with unprecedented energy savings down to 0.5w/sf.
The technology was demonstrated in both private and open office spaces with an average energy savings of 45 percent. The payback on current pricing is four to seven years for retrofit applications and immediate to one year for new construction or major renovation.
To test the LED task lighting system in applications, several field demonstrations were conducted. Three of these demonstration projects are presented in this report – Department of Mental Health (DMH) (Sacramento, CA), Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) (Sacramento, CA), and Gexpro (Hayward, CA). User satisfaction is studied at these three demonstration sites plus additional sites at United Stationers (Sacramento, CA) and Breathe California (Sacramento, CA) with a total of 50 respondents. The satisfaction ratio was overwhelmingly positive, exceeding 10:1.