Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Saving power - off/on/off/on
Has anyone some expertise about power saving from devices — motion sensors? — which automatically switch-off lights when there's no activity in a room?
I can see the point of installing them, when I see office buildings at night blazing with light at times when it seems unlikely people are still working - though of course, the cleaners may be. On the other hand there are places like libraries where putting in these systems is frankly bonkers. It's essential for public confidence and basic safety purposes that such public spaces are well-lit and enable overlooking.
I thought about the question yesterday at a meeting in Haringey Civic Centre. Seven people sitting talking and leaning over a map wasn't enough to stop the lights constantly going out. So we needed to walk around and flap our arms.
Does the frequent switching on and off even save any energy?
Tags for Forum Posts: crime and safety, energy saving, going green, power saving, safety
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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You get what you pay for, Alan, as ever.
I've installed various types of 'presence detector', including for burglar alarms. Almost everything can be obtained with a timer - that might have reduced the flap you got into.
There are the PIR's (Passive Infra Red) you can buy in the DIY supermarkets/Ebay etc (often bundled with 'floodlights')
The 'professional' ones made by the likes of Honeywell add a second technology, often microwave, to increase the quality of detection. This can prevent pets setting them off.
Then there's a 'masking' facility that can ignore certain areas and can help a lot.
Finally, CCTV systems often incorporate motion detection, sometimes built into the cameras themselves - it detects changes in the 'scene' and can trigger recording, alarms, lights etc if movement is seen.
As to energy saving, anything that takes a 'surge' of electricity to operate can be more expensive to switch on and off but the modern lights (particularly LED-based ones) likely to be in a Civic Centre don't surge. Old fashioned 'incandescent' light bulbs did surge. 'Fluorescent' tubes are more efficient than ever now, but they too surge.
Thus frequent switching of older devices can shorten their life too - bulbs that are still on after years wouldn't be if they were regularly switched.
The building manager can maybe fix the problem - I assume you considered that as I guess it'll be the same in every room.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Thus frequent switching of older devices can shorten their life too - bulbs that are still on after years wouldn't be if they were regularly switched.
Yes, it's the heating up and cooling down, or expansion and contraction – that causes wear. the thermal cycle and it applies to many things, including computers. A kind of fatigue.
Many people have heard of the world's first widely successful personal computer, the Apple II. Few people have heard of the Apple III, which wasn't Apple Computer's finest hour.
I understand that instead of a separate heat-sink, the entire circuit board was used to dissipate heat (!?). Over a period of cycles of heating-up and cooling down, the components managed to work themselves lose and ceased making a good connection. Oops.
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Motion sensor systems should only be used in areas of a building where people forget to switch the lights off but aren't in that area of the building often; e.g. toilets, cupboards. In areas such as meeting rooms light sensors should be used. These read the light from outside, assuming there are windows, and decide if artificial lighting is needed or not.
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Permalink Reply by JulieB on
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I know nothing about timed lights but I love the image I've got of Councillors plunged into darkness and having to run round flapping to get the lights back on - tee hee
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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I used to go to a clinic where the same thing happened when you were sitting on the loo!
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Permalink Reply by Inkjetpack on
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The organisation I work for installed power saving software on its computer systems. This allows pcs to be shut down when not in use, and restarted automatically for software updates and virus scanning out of hours (increasing staff productivity during business hours) and saves us £40,000 per year in energy costs - helping us hit our greening IT KPIs. We're also busy virtualising servers and investigating alternatives to air conditioning (such as forced air and heat exchange) for our server rooms which will lead to further cost savings.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Many thanks for the helpful posts in this thread. I'll wait to see if there are some further contributions and then ask Haringey Property Services for a response.
By coincidence, Clive Carter asked me about the varying times of street lights in his road. Here's the reply I got from Sustainable Transport, which other people may find interesting, as it applies more generally.
As usual, I'd ask members of HoL to report street lights which either don't come on at all, or stay on during the day. As well as the website link there's a voice/answerphone line on 0500-236-458.
"The existing street lights along [streetname] are a mixture of old and new, as we have replaced a number of lamp columns that had reached the end of their life expectancy. All of our street lights have individual photocell controls; the new ones have very tight light settings and will turn off earlier in the morning therefore saving energy. Shade from trees will bring lights on earlier and off later. The older ones may stay on during the day as the nights get longer and the morning light levels remain low.
The old ones will need to be replaced within the next few years and will be considered when prioritising our programme for next year."
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Having done some work decades ago with local authorities on electricity consumption, I learned that street lights were not metered - the Borough paid the bill with no real way of knowing how accurate it was. A surprisingly large number of street lights were 'off' at any one time.
May have changed by now - hope so.
Better control could bring energy-saving opportunities. Might be good to set up a system where residents can fill in a form if they want to comment on particular street lights.
Even better if that form allowed them to 'adopt' a street tree too, but that's a different topic...
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Chris, I'll add the streetlight meter/consumption question to my others. Residents can comment on a particular streetlight - via the Council's Report-a-problem page on its website. (I added the arrow.)
As for having a system for "adoption" of planters, trees, small greens etc, I've stopped suggesting this. There seems to be an odd symmetry between the reluctant responses of council officers and councillors; and some residents.
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Thanks Alan - glad to see it's there - could you also find out, if it's easy, how many people actually use the form and maybe suggest it's added the next time labels on the actual lights are placed, ideally with a QR code too. Be good if the QR code led directly to a pre-filled-in form confirming the number of the light.
As to green adoptions, if I put up a web page letting people adopt a local tree would that work in practice do you think? Free service. I remember this worked for the guy selling bits of the moon...
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Thanks, Chris.
I could ask about the numbers and frequency of users for specific webpages. But right now, councillors sending enquiries need to balance the potential usefulness of the information with the extra workload on a severely reduced staff team. Also, could you explain how having QR (Quick Response] data coded on the lamppost plates would work? And especially how it could make notification by residents any easier or quicker?
In case people haven't spotted these, Chris is referring to the unique ID tag on most lampposts. Like the one - RY 5 F - below the street sign shown in this photo.
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Thanks for posting this Alan which confirms my earlier observations of the new lampposts under trees. It's seems to be a thoroughly efficient means of control and coupled with the anyway more effective lamps.
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