Micro-Management of Lighting Controls Projects

Abstract

A common lighting project is to evaluate a block of rooms for savings and payback from the use of photocells or occupancy sensors. The designer counts the fixtures to be controlled, calculates the watts used and then the expected savings. If the payback is not agreeable to the owner, the entire project is abandoned. This paper introduces a new computer-aided approach that permits the designer greater flexibility in the analysis of controls and promises a higher level of savings for any given facility, thus a shorter payback. The computer program first prompts for the data on all the rooms in a facility, including occupied hours at present and actual hours per week the lights are required. The routine then calculates the savings and payback for every room and sorts them in descending order of savings. The designer can target only those zones with the highest potential savings so limited funds can be put to best use. The program has a hall range of data entry forms and reports that output the data.