Over the last month, I have been lucky to attend two great lighting events organized by the Canadian Urban Institute LightSavers program. The first was the Canada 2015 National LED Lighting Summit in November and the second was a workshop regarding LED Lighting for Parking Facilities in early December. The Summit included various facility owners, LED lighting suppliers, speakers extolling the virtues of LED lighting technology, and discussions of current and future applications. The workshop for parking facilities was a more detailed discussion about the applications in parking facilities, barriers to implementation, and case studies. In fact, UHN’s own Elizabeth Street Parkade retrofit was recognized as an excellent application and was used as a case study. It’s great to see some of the lighting projects at UHN getting recognition from other organizations!
If you are reading this and thinking “gee, I wish I could also do a successful lighting retrofit,” CUI has a bunch of design guides that can help: http://www.canurb.org/lightsavers/
Just because we’ve had success on this and a few other lighting projects here, here, and here, we’re not resting on our laurels just yet! Here are a few new and exciting LED projects we are working on:
UHN-wide LED T8 replacement
Recently, reliable and cost effective products have come on the market that allow for a plug and play replacement of T8 fluorescent lighting with an equivalent LED. The LED tubes consume 18W compared to 32W for a standard T8 fluorescent – almost 50% savings. Lamp life is also doubled, reducing the frequency of replacement. We are replacing 720 lamps at TRI-UC with the help of Gord Wood and his hard working facilities team and we are targeting all 24/7 T8 fluorescent applications across UHN for the same retrofit. The savings will add up fast!
TRI-BC Phase two of Parking lot light replacement
The first ten lamps replaced at Bickle were highly successful and we are continuing the installation of more LEDs for the parking lot as well as the walkways.
TRI-RC replacement of canopy lighting
Existing lighting is inefficient and expensive metal halide technology. Ballasts and bulbs are frequently burning out and we are testing some new canopy fixtures to make sure we won’t have a lighting issue in the RC parking lot for many years.
Look for the savings numbers to be posted on this blog as the projects are completed.
Also, it just wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t mention LED Christmas lights! Convert those old incandescent string lights that are constantly breaking and burning out to LEDs and save up to 94% of the electricity!
Talkin' Trash With UHN 
Hi Mike,
What T8 replacement tubes are you planning to use? We’ve had spaces where we’ve specified a particular mid-range colour temperature of our fluorescents, in consideration of the use of the space as well as for consistency with nearby CFL pots and accent lights. Will those specifications be respected when the replacements go in? I’m sure you’re under pressure to go for the most efficient ones, but those high-Kelvin emitters can be pretty unpleasant.
LikeLike
Hi Chip,
Thanks for the comment. We have commonly encountered lighting consultants specifing LEDs that wind up being extremely bright. I believe they are worried about not meeting light levels with new technology and end up overdesigning the light. We are wary of this and try to correct it in the design stage.
At TRI-UC, we are using the GE Integrated LED tubes which directly replace the existing fluorescent tubes: http://www.gelighting.com/LightingWeb/na/images/LEDL002-GE-LED-18W-Integrated-Tubes-Sell-Sheet_tcm201-88343.pdf
We have specified 3500K colour temperature to match the existing fluorescents and have installed them in 24-hour hallway areas in the east tower (older half of the building). It is common for the colour temperature of fluorescent lights to degrade over time, so the LED lights may look a bit brighter compared to a 5-year old fluorescent. Feel free to walk through UC and take a look!
LikeLike