The green agenda dominates the UK building and construction sector, in particular the redevelopment of the country's educational establishments. The Building Schools for the Future programme is the biggest single Government investment in improving school buildings for over 50 years. Its aim is to rebuild or renew every single secondary school in England over a 10-15 year period. There has been a corresponding acceleration in the redevelopment of primary schools, colleges and universities, as well as a huge investment in the creation of new academies.Protecting the environment … sustainable building … saving energy … reducing carbon emissions: these are the green issues being addressed during this ambitious building programme. Eliminating unnecessary use of lighting is proving to be an extremely effective method of cutting an educational building's carbon footprint.
Systems from Ex-Or Limited, international leader in lighting management, automatically control lighting. They enable lights to switch on and off, and dim or brighten, by monitoring the presence of occupants and by measuring the amount of natural light available. Ex-Or's equipment is helping schools and other educational establishments around the UK to dramatically cut costs and save energy. Their systems are being incorporated into both newbuild and refurb developments.
Lighting can account for up to half of a typical school's electricity use. With electricity usually accounting for half of the total energy bill there is the potential to save 25 per cent of the entire electricity load. Building services consultants Pick Everard recently completed the design of all the lighting for a major education PFI project for five schools; luminaires with a value of around £380,000 were supplied by Concord:marlin.
Individual schools include Lakeside Primary School and Da Vinci Community College in Derby where the lighting is being controlled by Ex-Or LightSpot presence-detecting controls. Ex-Or has completed a contract to install lighting management systems throughout the prestigious West London Academy. Areas where lighting is controlled by Ex-Or include offices, classrooms, performance arts theatre, sports hall and even a ¼ mile long corridor. It is estimated that lighting control is delivering a 45 per cent saving off the electrical load at the West London Academy.
Some Local Authorities have been reaping the benefits of Ex-Or lighting controls for some time now. Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council installed Ex-Or systems throughout 30 of its schools resulting in an annual £27,000 reduction in its electricity bills.
Similarly, Telford and Wrekin Council in Shropshire cut thousands of pounds a year from the electricity bills at three schools. The cost of installation was recouped in less than five years and the council has been enjoying cost savings year on year ever since.
Ex-Or has won the contract to supply lighting controls throughout the University of Manchester, the country's largest single-site higher education institution, for the next three years. The University is embarking on the biggest programme of capital investment ever seen in British higher education. It is spending £350 million to deliver eight new buildings and 15 major refurbishment projects by 2010. Faced with escalating energy costs of up to 80 per cent, and the requirement to reduce carbon emissions, the University of Manchester sees energy conservation as a critical factor in their building programme, hence the specification of Ex-Or equipment.
Ex-Or is a public sector supplier with OGCbuying.solutions, the executive agency of the Office of Government and Commerce in the Treasury which is dedicated to providing procurement services to help central government and the wider public sector to achieve greater efficiency and value for money.
