Chalmor assists Newcastle City Council’s carbon savings

Chalmor’s lighting, combined with BlueWave lighting controllers, is helping Newcastle City Council to reduce its energy consumption and carbon emissions across large areas of its building portfolio. 

“Upgrading the lighting is a key element in the Council’s Carbon Management programme and is projected to reduce our carbon emissions by 1,200 tonnes of CO₂ per annum once all of the work has been completed,” explained a council spokesman. “Replacing existing T8 fluorescent tubes with high efficiency T5 light sources, using Chalmor’s combination of efficient products and design skills, will reduce our installed electrical load by around 50%. Having worked with Chalmor on a number of projects we have been very pleased with the levels of service and support, and the quality of the products,” he continued. 

So far, four buildings have been upgraded to T5 lighting and a further nine buildings will be included in the roll-out programme. In most of the buildings, the lighting is linked to Chalmor’s BlueWave 2-channel lighting controllers, enabling the lighting to be controlled in relation to occupancy and daylight levels. For smaller spaces, Chalmor has provided single channel combined occupancy/light sensors to achieve the same level of control with minimum re-wiring. 

The return on investment for each building varies but some of the car parks that are lit 24 hours a day are expected to yield an 18 month payback, including installation costs. Most of the buildings offer a payback of less than five years, entitling the council to take advantage of Carbon Trust/Salix loans to fund the investment. 

In addition, the new T5 lamps will last three times as long as the previous T8 lamps, so maintenance costs and the cost of lamp disposal under the WEEE Directive will be less, thus reducing the total cost of ownership.