ANDREW SMITH
Senior Technical Director
Reducing the energy usage in schools by replacing inefficient light sources with high efficacy LED fixtures and lamps is an obvious thing to do. However, a successful transformation to LED is not as simple as it seems as there are many obstacles to overcome. Fixtures are often 20 years old, or more, and its aesthetically not acceptable to do a simple re-lamp as both teachers and students expect beautiful lighting which will last another 20 years.
There are a multitude of national standards which need to be met for each type of area including different type classrooms, science labs, sports facilities, kitchens, and restaurants. These include light levels, different height reference plains, diversity, and uniformity standards, not to mention emergency lighting. All the above needs to be taken into consideration when designing new lighting schemes.
In addition to the above, most schools have relatively short annual burn hours which can greatly extend any ROI compared to those enjoyed in industry and commerce. The removing and disposal of the old tubes have very stringent recycling requirements as well. So, in reality it’s not so easy.
Also, many schools face financial challenges and often don’t have the necessary finances to consider overhauling their lighting despite understanding the benefits it would bring. Minimise has many years of experience in school lighting projects and understands the commercial constraints many schools face. Minimise can help provide both the financial tools and the technical expertise to enable these types of projects to get done at no cost to the school, often along with pre-paid savings which the school can further invest in whatever pressing needs they face.
We get asked a lot of questions about the @Minimise Global approach, and when the questions are technical we always ask Andy Smith, our Senior Technology Director. Turns out, Andy has quite a bit of great information for the common energy efficiency bloke or the super technical engineer or tradesman. So we created Ask Andy. Since we made it a cute cartoon, here is a little background to make sure he truly exists in real life.
In his words…
Married with two grown up girls.
Living on the north coast of Cornwall.
Well-travelled Electrical Engineer 30+ years experience.
Worked on both industrial and commercial energy saving projects, large and small, all over the world.
Headed up the lighting portion of the largest zero cost energy saving project in the world.
Product designs include three single and three phase motor controllers, variable speed drives and high output industrial LED fixtures.
Hobbies include restoring vintage British and Italian motorcycles, touring and Motogp.
See, he is real!
So anything you want to know just Ask Andy and chances are he’ll give you an answer that he ponders on a motorcycle somewhere in an English countryside. Or in the locaa pub. Cheers!
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