At the beginning of the New Year, the changes facing the lighting industry are becoming more and more obvious, and even high-level officials are emphasizing the lack of momentum for the growth of the world economy on the macro level, and the increase of unstable, uncertain and unpredictable factors. How to explore the growth potential is a realistic topic in front of lighting companies. This year, the country continues to increase its efforts to achieve the dual-carbon goal and reduce energy consumption. For the lighting market, we need to carefully consider:

1. The new construction market continues to transform into the existing construction market

I remember a few years ago, I accompanied a group of people in charge of real estate to Europe and visited a German architectural design firm. Our host, a Chinese designer who had studied in Germany and stayed there after graduation, asked how many new projects they designed a year, and the answer was in single digits. Later, people in charge of domestic real estate said privately that if he were in China, the projects he would receive should be tens or even hundreds of times more. In the past year, real estate development has stalled, and the number of new projects received by many domestic design firms has sharply decreased, but some existing buildings have been renovated. In addition, urban renewal has gradually formed a trend, not to demolish existing buildings, but to re-plan and use existing buildings, providing new market opportunities for lighting companies.

2, the practice of simple replacement of LED lamps in lighting energy saving has encountered a bottleneck

Building energy efficiency retrofits are also nothing new, and there were a large number of energy efficiency companies that tried to enter the market with EMC solutions a few years ago. At that time, I have seen many energy-saving transformation schemes, and I found that in the lighting subsystem, it is often very simple to replace the lamps using traditional light sources with LED lamps. It is undeniable that such a replacement can also bring some energy-saving effects at that time, but did not explore the energy-saving potential of intelligent lighting, when the coverage of LED lamps to a certain extent, the use of this program of energy-saving companies will encounter bottlenecks.

It is time for us to re-examine the energy saving of smart lighting. As Lin Yan, vice president of Sanxiong Aurora, said in the New Year outlook, the most impressive thing in 2023 is that intelligent lighting is undergoing positive changes, especially in the field of commercial lighting, because intelligent lighting can bring management, operation and maintenance convenience, can significantly reduce energy consumption and lighting use costs, more and more users have accepted and even actively seek intelligent lighting solutions.

So, what kind of energy-saving effect can intelligent lighting system bring? In fact, there are a lot of research reports that give evidence. In the study Energy Savings fromNetworked Lighting Control(NLC) Systems with and without LLLC, published by the DesignLights Consortium, A total of 194 buildings of various types were monitored throughout the year. These buildings all use intelligent lighting control system, the average energy saving effect in the lighting part can reach 49%, of which the energy saving effect is the most obvious storage building, the energy saving effect reached 68%. In office-type buildings, the energy efficiency can also reach 64%. This is not through the replacement of LED lamps brought about by the energy-saving effect, but simply the use of intelligent lighting control system brought about by the energy-saving effect.
It can be seen that intelligent lighting control systems can really contribute to energy conservation. How to use intelligent lighting control system to achieve energy saving?

1, do the overall planning, pay attention to the application of the scene First of all, can not save energy for energy saving. Lighting affects our health and also reflects the aesthetic design of Spaces. We must take the needs and behaviors of people as the starting point and do a good overall plan. Secondly, different scenes, different needs, office, storage, public space, classrooms and other intelligent lighting needs are not the same. In addition, there are many including wired, wireless lighting control communication protocols, as well as supporting control hardware ecology. It is necessary to adopt appropriate control systems according to project requirements, project scale, supporting systems, etc. Finally, we should pay attention to the top-level management software, as well as interface protocols for other systems, to prepare for future upgrades and expansions. If possible, it can be connected with the sunshade system, HVAC, building control system, etc., to achieve greater energy saving effects, especially the HVAC energy consumption in the building accounts for the largest proportion.
3. Pay attention to data collection and application, do data monitoring, and protect data security

How much energy can be consumed/saved? Estimates alone won’t do. It is recommended to use smart devices with metering, such as smart meters, smart circuit breakers, if the granularity to each device, you can use drivers with metering chips, sockets, switches, and so on. The collection of good data can be effectively analyzed on the management system, and the space and behavior of high energy consumption can be re-adjusted to save energy and tap the potential of further saving energy. At the same time, pay attention to data security.

4. Give the calculation of input-output ratio to convince users

The deployment cost of intelligent lighting control system in the early stage is definitely higher than that of ordinary LED lamps. How to convince customers to use smart lighting control systems? Be sure to state how the overall solution will benefit the client. At the same time, it can be analyzed from the perspective of Total cost of ownership to calculate the initial installation cost, use cost, maintenance cost, etc. For example, when we promote the smart T8 lamp for garage renovation, we use the following table for return on investment analysis. In representative projects, the return cycle can be as short as 7 months, saving more than 100,000 yuan per month in electricity costs, and helping customers make clear judgments.
5. Pay attention to hidden service costs

For the sale of traditional LED lamps, agents usually provide basic logistics and installation costs. In contrast, the provision of intelligent lighting control system has an invisible service cost, whether it is pre-sale program, debugging in sale, and after-sales maintenance, if this part of the cost is not included, it is easy to cause loss of profit, or even loss of money. Dealers who are new to intelligent lighting control systems often ignore this part of the calculation, directly report low prices, and finally not only do not earn profits, but cause the control system is not used, and can not achieve the real energy-saving effect. Finally, we would like to emphasize that energy saving is only one important link in achieving the two-carbon goal. To reduce carbon emissions, we must consider the whole life cycle of the whole product, including raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, transportation, use, waste recycling and other links. Of course, if you can’t even save energy, let alone achieve more ambitious goals. Intelligent lighting energy saving for lighting enterprises to provide more market demand, but also provide more business opportunities, let us down to earth, do a good job of products and programs, to achieve growth.