Lightnews Vol 13.pdf - Philips Lighting Controls

Light in actionPreparing one of the operationalareas of the Standard Bank facilityin Johannesburg.Banking on an above Standardsolution gets 50% in savingsMaximising comfort as well as minimising energy are the basis for any controls solution in the office spacetoday. But for one major South African banking facility, both security and safety were added to the primaryrequirements for their recently implemented lighting system. The local Philips Dynalite distributor was able todemonstrate that employees within the facility could have safe, illuminated pathways to internal workstationswhile at the same time significantly reducing energy costs by effectively controlling the system right acrossthe facility at all times of the day for all building users.When South Africa’s StandardBank released a tender for theconstruction of a facility to house someof its operations, one of the majorrequirements of the project was to optimiseenergy efficiency in the building. TeslaAutomation was chosen to supply, install andcommission the lighting management systemthat is possibly the largest networkedlighting system in South Africa.The total budget for the project, includingconstruction, fit-out and computerhardware, was approximately 4 billion Rand(400 M Euro). Located in Johannesburg, thebuilding comprises offices, computer roomsand common areas, covering approximately50,000 square metres of flooring. Whilethe core of the Philips Dynalite technologyallows for integration with other buildingservices, the design from Tesla was for astand-alone lighting management system.“We originally proposed integration to thebuilding network system for individual lightcontrol, but for security reasons the bankdid not want anyone to be able to accessthe data networks,” said Zoran Paunovic,Managing Director of Tesla Automation inCape Town.Tesla has been the Philips Dynalite valueadded reseller (VAR) for southern Africasince 2004 and enjoys good workingrelationships with many of the leadingelectrical consultants and engineers inthe region. The facility is a completelynew building. During the fit-out stage, thecabling for the lighting management systemand luminaires, as well as the light fixturesthemselves, were installed by the electricalcontractor. Paunovic’s team installed all thesmart devices including the controllers,sensors and switches and also programmedand then commissioned the whole system.Paunovic was able to demonstrate tothe lead electrical consultant that Tesla’sproposal was a more cost effective solutionthan any other competitors solution. Inparticular two items stood out, the ease ofconfiguring the system and the minimal needfor reprogramming. Energy efficiency andsustainability were a major consideration inthe planning for the new bank facility andTesla was able to show that its design couldpotentially save more than 50 per cent onenergy consumption.Securing the projectBanks are renowned for their adherenceto security of their systems and restrictingaccess to different parts of the building.Paunovic stated that the only time theyrequired special clearance was when histeam returned to site to make a slightalteration to the configuration and toreplace a faulty device. “We had alreadyfinished our part of the job before thetenants moved in,” he added. “We onlyhad to go back and go through a short listof minor changes which is something youalways have to do on this type of project.”Paunovic said that of all the equipmentthat his team installed, only one sensorout of the 500 was defective and that itwas a simple matter to replace the unit byunplugging the faulty one and replacing itwith a new unit. It was then a simple matterof adjusting the DLight III server software,rather than reprogramming everything fromscratch like some other systems.One of the largest electrical contractorsin South Africa was responsible for the30 | Lightnews Vol 13