Lights, Cameras, Action
The sustainable buildings movement and a need for greater accountability from occupants have changed the way technology is developing in the two front running subsectors in the building automation industry: lighting and security.
There is no doubt that the twinkling gizmos and gadgets that control buildings are more sophisticated than ever. Engineers fit automation systems as standard in new buildings these days. Lighting design used to be all about effect and colour. Now it is about effect and colour that is automatically controlled over time and uses a minimum of energy. Whether the goal of the project is to be decorative, as in exterior architectural lighting, or functional, as in maintaining consistent lux levels for office-cube dwellers, energy efficiency is by far the most important criteria.
In security, according to Ramil Maravillon, an even more significant shift is taking place. The systems side of things is going uber high-tech and within companies often the IT department is taking care of the integration process. Meanwhile the side of the business that no computer can replace, people driven processes such as investigations and physical security, is becoming more service oriented. While CCTV is often used only after an incident has taken place, he says, preventative security requires human intervention and planning. The significant overlap in the functions of security and lighting (exterior way finding at night, for example) requires the control systems to integrate as well.
Paul Lo, Manager, Specification Project, Thorn, says lighting and security are more likely to be considered together in modern building design than ever before. Integrated security and lighting controls are particularly useful in hotels, theatres and modern commercial buildings settings. He highlights two projects he has worked on as good examples of facilities designed as integrated units: San Hui Market in Tuen Mun and The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in Pok Fu Lam. Integrating the systems allows a higher level of safety and reduces the labour necessary for maintenance because there is no need to check the fittings until the lamp or ballast fault registers through an automatic signal. This signal may also constitute a security alert. However, at a developmental stage both lighting and security tend to be managed separately. Large lighting suppliers such as Thorn generally split their companies into different divisions for different types on interior and exterior lighting products. The manager for each group will work with lighting designers or the electrical and mechanical (E&M) engineer to determine which product offering would be most suitable. The products themselves are sold directly to the contractor. The same process then takes place for the creation of the security system. They are then “bolted together” at the last minute, often doubling up fittings, cables and other hardware.
Lighting control systems
Lo believes that over time lighting systems have become less complex, and are now “more user friendly and simple in terms of computer operation, scene control, and maintenance.” Product suppliers and systems designers now equip their systems with a digital or “Digital Addressable Lighting Interface” (DALI) electronic ballasts. The DALI ballast allows sensors and dimmers to adjust tens of luminaires individually to maximize the use of natural lighting and reduce energy usage. He says these sensor and time activated control systems could be standalone, connected to the security system or integrated with a building management system.
Dynalite designs and manufactures technology solutions for lighting control and building automation applications, and as a result of market demand are now further enhancing their offering to focus more on the inherent energy saving capabilities of their product. Brett Annesly, Segment Manager, Energy Management, Dynalite, points out that the most energy efficient light is the one that’s turned off. However he goes on to say that by integrating systems and installing new state of the art systems with efficient daylight harvesting and sensors dramatic energy savings can ensue.
He uses the example of a regular office. Generally there will be more light around the perimeter of the office and less in the centre. In-built sensors detect whether there is the required 380 lux level and through preprogrammed intelligence and dimmable fittings adjust the level of artificial light. The knack however is to make all changes in lighting levels very, very gradual. Office workers will be up on their desks fiddling with the fittings in no time if there is a sudden change from light or dark. Instead, as areas change from occupied to vacant (determined through occupancy sensors) and daylight waxes and wanes each fitting will respond by slowly increasing or decreasing its brightness.
This is all made possible by protocols such as DALI and the trend towards structured (rather than traditional) wiring and cabling systems. Structured cabling and these types of controls systems enable companies to comply with new energy saving buildings regulations and green building rating schemes. For example, the Australian building code has reduced the maximum space for which a single switch can control a lighting system to 100 sqm. An additional benefit, points out Annesly, is that after hours settings (or cleaning mode settings) can be set so that occupancy sensors will keep lighting at a lower level or cut off all lights after half an hour. This also benefits security patrols. Staff can control the lighting from their computers and Ecolinx, a plug and play distributed lighting control system, allows all connections to the structured wiring ports in the distributed ballast control to be connected/disconnected without tools.
Encouraging use
One of the biggest problems facing any building automation system, Annesly believes, is that it needs to be used as the designers intended, otherwise many of the benefits will be lost. As such, training facilities managers, producing operations and maintenance guides and training floor by floor managers what to do and who to go to when things go wrong is par for the course. However, it is not as straight forward in every area of lighting design and control, says Howard Ng, Senior Manager, Megaman Hong Kong.
Megaman is a lighting product supplier specialising in energy saving lamps, focusing on compact florescent tubes (CFT). They are now also considering the lumen per watt efficiencies available through LED, as are being proven out of laboratory conditions says Ng. As with any of the technologies in the energy saving space, manufacturers have to wait until a certain product produces consistent effects at a marketable cost before taking it to the lighting designer or architect who proposes the solution to the customer.
Problems arise because energy efficient lighting doesn’t look the same as the halogen or incandescent bulbs that lighting designers are used to working with. Not better or worse says Ng, just that the effect and the range of things that can be done with these bulbs and encasing luminaires varies from what they learnt earlier in their careers. Ng says that designers see they need to “replace” previous systems rather than embracing new energy efficient options that offer different effects. For example, hot halogen is still used widely in retail settings. It is being selected despite the fact it is so strong that it would burn real plant matter placed under it, while energy efficient lighting would not. It is hard to change people’s mentality as even Ng plays the game, saying that they got “90 percent the same effect” when they refitted Giordano’s stores. However, rather supporting the movement and development of, for example, mercury free energy efficient lights professional lighting designers and their associations are protesting against them.
Controls the key
Fortunately controls change all that. While energy saving ballasts and dimmers can be fitted to reduce the energy consumption of pretty much any light bulb, the power of LED lighting and displays opens up a whole world of programmability that goes well beyond energy saving, a world that lighting designers are embracing. Controls are therefore changing the security and lighting industries in many ways, but the common underlying factor is the need to please the implementers, the users and the people paying for the solution.
Two completely different sectors, it is only the advent of integration platforms that has enabled the advancement and interlinking of systems to make our buildings more robust and efficient. As with both lighting and securit alone, without stakeholder support automation is pointless. With it, it’s unstoppable.
