Lowering energy consumption with adaptive lighting in non-residential buildings and NZS 20086
Committee chair and lighting expert Bryan King explains the benefits that NZS 20086:2022 – Light and lighting – Energy performance of lighting in buildings will bring.
Wellington’s city lights
Dynamic adaptive lighting can lower energy use
“Smart” or dynamic adaptive lighting can adjust brightness levels in response to conditions such as fluctuating daylight, occupancy patterns, and user preferences. As a result, it could lower energy consumption over daily, weekly, and seasonal building use cycles and provide metrics and measurement methods for systemic lighting energy use in non-residential buildings.
NZS 20086 presents international good practice in lighting energy evaluation and complements the ISO 52000 series for integrated whole-of-building energy and emissions performance evaluation.
Lighting designers can integrate the best technology
NZS 20086 is a complementary standard to be used in conjunction with the existing standard NZS 4243.2 – Energy efficiency - Large buildings - Part 2: Lighting. Together this helps provide greater scope to lighting designers, architects and engineers around different types of lighting controls you can have and ways to estimate and measure the effect of adaptive lighting. Following these standards helps to evaluate design ideas and technology options holistically, before a project reaches the approval stage.
Building energy professionals have the right metrics
Building energy and carbon assessment-and-verification professionals will have fit-for-purpose metrics and calculation methods for standards-based evaluation and reporting.
Saving money and measuring energy use
Decision making can be informed through the evaluation energy use, operational carbon emissions and costs in terms of existing or prospective buildings.
For building owners, there could be financial benefits in optimising lighting operations and potentially reducing overall energy consumption.
For state sector stakeholders working to the Carbon Neutral Government Programme (CNGP) 2025 deadline, energy savings could reduce the number of carbon credits required.
Energy regulators can report against programmes
The new standard will help achieve public policy objectives by providing reporting methods in line with the CNGP and Building for Climate Change (BfCC) programmes.
Lighting equipment suppliers can give more informed advice
The new standard supports “accounting rules” for objective business case compilation and a basis for calculating a project’s net present value in order to justify an investment in controls technology. Investors, suppliers and customers should all benefit.
Installation contractors can offer the latest technology
Electrical contractors and smart building systems integrators will be able to add value to their services by using the methods as commissioning and continuous improvement frameworks.
Changing how spaces are lighted
What’s clear is that the way we light buildings is changing. Lighting that is appropriately located, of the correct light level, and suited to the needs of users can reduce energy wastage, drive down carbon emissions and costs and provide metrics to inform choices. With NZS 20086 as the standard, lighting will work smarter, more efficiently and more effectively.
NZS 20086:2022 – Light and lighting – Energy performance of lighting in buildings is available from our webshop from Tuesday 19 July 2022.