Your chance to influence the future of Part L – Act NOW!
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This time last year the Approved Documents for the revisions to the Building Regulations were released. We saw a rise in the headline numbers but most people have been disappointed with them and with good cause.
Given that the core purpose of Part L is to “further the conservation of fuel and power”, it can be argued that the current regulations fail in this fundamental objective. We are a decade into the 21st Century and yet we find ourselves in a situation where photocells and PIRs are treated as ‘advanced’ controls. Ask any lighting designer and most would have a very different description of advanced controls.
The current lack of emphasis on controls is perhaps the largest flaw; it allows luminaires, whether they are 55 lumens per watt or higher, to be left on at 2am in a deserted building. It’s often said but we all know the most efficient luminaire is the one which is switched off, so how can a measure of luminaire performance on its own be a measure of efficiency? We all know of course that it can’t which is why we need to make changes.
The good news is that DCLG, the Government department responsible for the Building Regulations, are receptive to change. The Society has been involved in a number of meetings with them to discuss alternative measures and through the Lighting Liaison Group, we are now in a position to influence the measure of efficiency in future editions.
The universal thinking across the industry seems to be that we must move to a systems-based measure that fully reflects the use of controls. We already have a measurement tool at our disposal in LENI (Lighting Energy Numeric Indicator) which allows us to predict and benchmark energy efficiency of lighting installations.
In December of this year, the consultation will be released for the 2013 & 2016 regulations. However, after the consultation has been released, we will not be able the method of measurement, only the detail, so if we want to move to systems-based targets, we need to get them incorporated into the consultation document.
To achieve this, we need to provide DCLG with evidence to support our case in the form of case studies. They can be designs still on the drawing table showing predicted LENI values or installed projects with measured consumption but we need to demonstrate that energy consumption of a system is a far better metric than we currently have.
The template should be easy to complete and we encourage you to add comments about the project, whether that is about the energy reduction in a refurbishment programme or the design decisions taken for a new build. The more information we as an industry can supply to DCLG, the stronger our position.
But because we need to influence the consultation document, we only have until June to act so please send in your case studies as soon as possible. This will be the only opportunity we have to change the metric until after 2016!
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