One of the recommendations from Envirowise was to review our lighting system to look for energy savings. Generally, all the lights are switched on in the morning and they are left on all day until everyone goes home. But there are areas of the factory that are used mainly for storage and are unoccupied for large parts of the day, yet the lights remain on all day wasting energy. So to overcome this problem, I have been looking into installing Passive Infa Red (PIR) sensors that will switch on the lights only when someone is working in the area. Another suggestion was to replace our existing T8 fluorescent tubes with thinner, more efficient T5 versions. T5s use about 50% less energy and last 3 times longer than T8s so it should be well worth the investment.

One useful company that I came across when doing this research is Chalmor. They are a lighting specialist who can advise on the best way to save energy on lighting systems. They can offer a wide range of energy saving products, consultancy service and can arrange installation as well. Their website is very useful too - I came across this calculator that works out how much energy (and money) you could save by switching from T8s to T5s and what the payback period is likely to be. I called Chalmor to arrange a review of our factory lighting and someone came to visit the factory within a week. They will put together a report for us with some recommendations on how we can save energy on lighting bills and estimate the cost, projected energy and financial savings, and pay back period. I’m looking forward to hearing about how much they can save us.