Reducing Energy Consumption with Intelligent PoE Lighting.
What do Leicester, Staverton, and Finham all have in common? Apart from being places in the Midlands region, they’re all Severn Trent sites that are now running on much less energy than they were before – thanks to our intelligent lighting systems.
How smart PoE lighting systems reduce energy and improve building efficiency.
Smart lighting is essentially a dense network of sensors that monitor and report on things like: motion, brightness, temperature, and power consumption. Having a ‘network’ of sensors, as opposed to one in each room, increases the amount of movement that can be picked up. Now, Severn Trent has the ability to view and control what’s happening in these three sites. That’s because everything the sensors are picking up, can be looked at centrally via a user-friendly web portal.
The sensors also trigger energy saving actions. They automatically switch the lights on and off when they detect people are moving in and out of workspaces. And, if there’s enough natural daylight coming in from outside, then the smart lighting system will automatically dim the lights, to instantly save energy and cost. In the trade, this is referred to as daylight harvesting.
Instead of regular electricity wires, the smart lighting is powered by low voltage, SYSTIMAX® category 6 and 6A cables, from market leaders, CommScope. These cables are the same ones you use to send emails over. It’s cheaper to run for Severn Trent in the long-term, and means they can make moves, adds, and changes more easily in the future.
Technical fundamentals.
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Over 700 smart sensors were installed from wtec smartengine, formerly CommScope Redwood
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16 smartengines (Redwood engines) were fitted
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Intelligent lighting systems now exist over three sites, covering a distance of around 2,300 square metres
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Self testing emergency lights by Mackwell N-Light
George Pritchard summarised: "We feel privileged to work with a company as enthusiastic as we are, about protecting the planet – and look forward to helping them to deliver even more environmental and cost efficiencies, across more of their property portfolio."
Victoria Hughes, facilities manager at Severn Trent, said: "Scenariio is one of the companies who are helping us to take care of the environment by making sure our workspaces are operating efficiently. Both in terms of the amount of energy we use, and the way we use our buildings."
Using occupancy data and smart sensors to optimise building performance.
The network of sensors we installed allow Severn Trent to make more informed decisions about how they use their buildings. This is because the motion sensors collect critical occupancy data that shows the facilities team how workspaces are being used.
This information helps to answer questions like:
- Which of my sites are used more than others?
- Which are the busiest and quietest areas in my building?
- How often are my meeting rooms being used, by time and date?
- Which is the most utilised floor in my building?
- How many people are entering my building at any one time?
- Why is the second floor always empty in the afternoon?
These motion sensors inform short-term decisions, and long-term planning decisions about how Severn Trent can use their buildings estate more efficiently.
On a tactical level, sensors can also help to keep people safe from intruders. For example, alerts can be triggered when the sensors pick up motion in places that should be empty.
The sensors can also help to facilitate social distancing strategies, by alerting teams to congested areas in real-time. Or, by helping them to better distribute employees across the campus.
Heatmaps produced by the sensors can provide information to determine cleaning schedules too.
Delivering sustainable smart building solutions through trusted technology partnerships.
The brains behind the smart lighting system, is the revolutionary smartengine product from wtec – formerly CommScope Redwood. CommScope is one of our trusted partners, and already had a relationship with the teams at Severn Trent. We’ve been working with CommScope for around 25 years’ now, and so together, we were confident Severn Trent would benefit from this technology.
Incidentally, we already had history with Severn Trent ourselves, and it’s a company that’s very close to our hearts. Why? Because our owner and managing director, Rob Pritchard, used to be employed by Severn Trent in the eighties – and it was Rob who designed and installed the original cabling that connected 28 of their sites.
Measured energy savings, carbon reduction and cost benefits from smart lighting.
So, what have been the benefits for all parties as a result of this smart lighting system?
