more productive in a
well-lit space that fosters better visual comfort.
Lighting controls can increase the value of commercial buildings
by making them more comfortable, productive, and energy efficient.
These controls work either by turning lights off when they are not
needed or by dimming light output so that no more light is produced
than necessary. By creatively combining these two functions,
designers can achieve even greater benefits such as these:
- An office building that installed daylight dimming controls and
experienced a 15-percent decline in absenteeism.
- A campus where occupancy sensors positioned in 8,000 rooms have
saved the school $1.3 million a year, with a payback of about one
year.
- An electronics manufacturer that used an energy management
system to control lights and saved more than $86,000 annually.
- A government laboratory that discovered when it gave workers
control over lighting levels that they used the controls to improve
their visual comfort as well as to save energy.
Lighting controls present another important benefit to designers:
Including them in a system can make it easier to meet or exceed
California's stringent lighting energy-efficiency
requirements.
This Design Brief provides the designer with in-depth information
on the following topics:
- On-Off Controls
- Dimming Controls
- Combined Technologies
