Southampton University Hospital Trust is the latest in a growing number of hospitals and healthcare trusts around the country turning to Ex-Or for lighting control to help meet environmental obligations and reduce operating costs.Southampton University Hospital Trust is one of ten NHS Trusts across England, Wales and Scotland set to cut its annual carbon footprint by 18 per cent, or 12,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, by joining the Carbon Trust's NHS Carbon Management programme. This is also helping reduce its combined annual energy bill by more than £3.5 million per year. Lighting typically comprises 20 per cent or more of the electrical load in a hospital building, accounting for a significant proportion of total electricity costs.
Fred Rolfe, principal engineer in Southampton General Hospital's estates and capital development department. said: "We want to cut our carbon emissions by 18 per cent over the next five years. We have identified several energy conservation schemes that will help us achieve this, and lighting control is one of those."
Ex-Or presence detection and daylight saving systems have been installed over three floors of two blocks at Southampton General Hospital, controlling open plan office areas, meeting rooms, corridors and patients' waiting areas.
Lighting in all areas of an operating theatre suite (apart from the operating area itself) is being controlled by Ex-Or systems. They dim and switch off the lights when the areas are out of use. The system also switches the ventilation systems on and off in line with usage patterns.
Ex-Or lighting controls will also be installed in two paediatric operating theatres in the hospital as part of the Trust's programme to upgrade and improve patient ward lighting. Ex-Or's daylight saving equipment will dim the lighting when levels of natural light are high, thus maintaining optimum lighting levels on the wards at all times of the day.
Southampton joins a number of hospitals around the country that have turned to Ex-Or for energy efficient lighting controls. These include Churchill Hospital in Oxfordshire, where Ex-Or systems were installed throughout its oncology department. Ex-Or recently completed an installation of lighting control systems at Lymington Hospital, New Forest, and will soon begin an installation of control systems in corridors and stairways at North Devon Hospital, Barnstaple. Ex-Or's scene setting and dimming system has been installed in conference rooms and lecture theatres of Whittington Hospital, North London.
Ms Charmian Cvek, Ex-Or marketing manager, said: "Over the last 20 years, we have amassed extensive experience of lighting control projects within the public sector. We are increasingly seeing value for money and elimination of wasteful expenditure move higher up the agenda for health service administrators. More and more realise that every pound saved from energy cutbacks can be put towards improving patient care."
Ex-Or manufactures and installs a wide range of systems which automatically control lighting. They enable lights to dim or brighten, and switch on and off, by monitoring the presence of occupants and by measuring the amount of natural light available.
