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Perhaps it is a statement about where we are on energy savings, but I am noticing these days more and more emphasis in mills and with suppliers on operations lighting. When I was young, the tendency was to add more lights so we could see the operations better (a good thing!). Now, we are moving toward what might be called smart lighting.
I observed a dark warehouse construction project about six years ago. It made sense. It is fully automatic, no one is allowed in or works in it, so why have the lights on? There are lights, of course, they just are not on during normal operations.
Now, machine suppliers are suggesting that lighting should be moved to being directly on the machine and come on only when a human gets within a prescribed distance from each light bank. I think this works as long as it is a fail-safe system, assuring that no one falls into machinery because they cannot see.
There is no reason why this cannot be done in any machine hall environment, operating floor or basement. Put each light on a motion detector and make sure it comes on only when someone walks within range. You can do this in your basement areas right now. Of course, there can be overrides for such times as maintenance shutdowns so the lights will not be flashing on and off all the time.
I first noticed this on demand lighting in the big box retail stores, in their freezer cases--the lights would come on as you walked by, then time out after a few seconds if you did not stop and linger. This has been going on for at least ten years.
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I think our attitude in the industry has been that lighting is merely a rounding error in our overall energy cost equation. Perhaps it is time for us to put pencil to paper and run the numbers so to speak. (I thought you might need a sentence full of buzz words to wake you up!).
If one starts to think about turning off lights when we don't need them, there are many areas of the mill that can qualify for this assessment. It will take a complete change of thinking, for our attitude until recently has been the more lights the better. (I know that has been my attitude).
Some of this came also from the days when we had to look visually at the product, or at least thought we had to look at the product, in order to ascertain its quality. Those days are rapidly becoming history. The sensors we have today do a better job than we ever did with our eyes in ascertaining product quality. Most of them do not need the lights on to work properly.
Of course, we can't go down this path without thinking about safety, for the orientation of human beings in their environment has much to do with their visual acuity. It will take a strong collaboration with life scientists or other appropriate professionals to make sure lights off/lights on is not a disorienting experience causing a safety problem, or perhaps even long-term health problems.
But I think we should try--this is an idea that is good for our bottom line and good for the environment.
Be safe and we will talk next week.
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