Green Goodies
LED Lighting offers many quick wins when it comes to reducing a client’s energy bills. Artificial light accounts for about 19% of global energy consumption, yet almost 70% of this is delivered by solutions to which a more efficient alternative is available. There is huge scope to reduce carbon emissions by switching to more efficient light sources.
LED technology is rapidly revolutionising the market place. It is being used in emergency lighting, street lighting and retail.
Apart from low energy there are a number of operational and environmental benefits to using LEDs. Their extraordinary long life (60,000 hours) means they need little maintenance, thus reducing through-life costs. In addition, colour rendering is now excellent, they emit neither UV nor IR radiation, and they contain no mercury.
In the retail sector, the race is on to become the first major supermarket to opt completely for LEDs indoor and out, something Simpson predicts will happen this year. Again, savings over conventional lighting solutions are expected to be about 40%.
Photovoltaics and CHP
There have been about 20,000 registrations for solar PV installations under the feed-in tariffs (FIT) scheme since its launch in April 2010. Construction product research firm AMA forecasts that the UK will progress to about 180,000 installed solar panels each year in 2015 and over 300,000 by 2020.
The government has announced the start of the first review of the FITs scheme. It will determine how the efficiency of FITs can be improved to deliver £40m of savings – about – 10 % in 2014/15. The review will be completed by the end of 2011, with tariffs remaining unchanged until April 2012 (unless the review reveals a need for greater urgency). A decision has already been taken to reduce tariffs for schemes over 50 kW.
