Calculating the benefits of lighting and energy management solutions in a commercial context poses a challenge to many workspace designers and the business that build them. The fundamental reason for this is the fact that the technology is more or less invisible or inconspicuous and therefore barely noticed at all. Businesses have also not traditionally measured their utilization of power in great detail, which prevents them from gaining insight into where wastage is happening in their office spaces and buildings. But today, calculating the potential for energy savings and the impact of systems that help control and monitor them has become critical.
In this whitepaper, Lutron talks about the incremental, yet impactful improvements in productivity possible when light controls are implemented in commercial environments (especially retail). The author tries to identify both the tangible and intangible impacts of lighting control and automation systems and explains how they are beneficial.
Some interesting observations from this study are:
“It’s reasonable to postulate that productivity improves at least 5% when workers can control their own visual environment, although productivity gains as small as 1% still make lighting control systems an excellent investment, with a payback period of seven months or less.”
“…people with dimming control reported higher ratings of lighting quality, overall environmental satisfaction, and
self-rated productivity.”
“in the research reported in Environmental News, absenteeism in a new Lockheed-Martin Corporation facility was found to drop
15% directly as a result of controlling the visual environment through daylighting.”
For more details on the impact of lighting control and automation, you can read the PDF whitepaper from Lutron here.
(Content & Image Credit: Lutron)