James Gubbins, owner of Pelling Marketing by Design, was looking to upgrade his small office to LED lighting and reduce his energy costs. Small businesses are always looking to retain profits, and reducing overheads is a simple and effective way they can achieve this.
- James Gubbins, Owner of Pelling Marketing by Design
"Cutting unnecessary expense and streamlining the business is really important for us,” says James. “We often have clients in the building and there can be several areas of the office that aren’t being used all of the time. What’s more, the fluorescent tubes we had in place tend to flicker and produce different shades of light. Not ideal for when we are trying to present ourselves as a modern forward-thinking business."
However, the Pelling office, as with the others in the same complex, is a listed building. This means installing luminaires and signal cables, such as DALI, was out of the question. As an additional challenge, Pelling has office-based employees so any disruption to the business would impact productivity and hurt the bottom line.
Interact Pro is a connected lighting system that works with Philips Interact ready luminaires to allow the lights to capture data (including energy usage). Crucially it uses a wireless Zigbee Mesh network that works via the internet to connect luminaires, sensors and switches. This means no additional cabling and a much quicker installation time that doesn’t interfere with the normal working hours of the team.
“Once I had begun to see how much information was on offer through connected lighting and understand the potential energy savings by combining this with a switch to LED I could immediately see that this would have a positive impact,” says James.
In order to better understand the existing energy consumption and how the office was being used, Pelling opted to use the lights without the available controls, behavior scheduling or automation, for one month. This helped provide insights into how to maximize energy savings once the trial period ended and the controls were switched on.
After installation, the Interact Pro app clearly showed that some of the lesser used areas, such as the kitchen, had lights that were often left on. This made it the ideal place to install a sensor for automated control of the lights. Light scheduling was also used to automatically turn lights off and avoid accidental energy wastage. By speaking to the individual members of the Pelling Marketing by Design team it was possible to learn about their preferences in terms of light levels – running the Philips Interact Ready LED tubes at only 70% brightness – thus further reducing energy consumption.
The result have been overwhelming, with a uniform professional look and large energy savings. The switch to ultra-output Philips Interact ready LED tubes alone saved 62% - and adding the controls element saved an additional 47%. This meant that the overall energy bill for lighting was reduced by 79%.
“We were stunned by how much energy we saved – this project will pay for itself within 2 years and that is without taking into account the cost of replacing fluorescent tubes as and when they fail,” said James. “Our team are happy they can adjust the light levels to suit their needs and it is great to be able to show customers how we have been working to reduce our energy usage too.”
As with any small business, Pelling are looking to grow and take on new team members. A key aspect of the Interact Pro lighting is that the installer can return and reconfigure the existing lighting set-up to better suit any new office layout should they wish, using the app or desktop portal.
Overall, the Interact Pro lighting system has allowed substantial cost savings while at the same time providing a nicer working environment that can be tailored to an employee's needs at a moment’s notice.
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