Facility & sustainability management
Whether you are looking to enhance your working environment by bringing additional daylight into your building or proactively seeking to reduce your energy costs and/or carbon footprint, Solatube® Daylighting Systems offer a well-proven, cost-effective and easily-implemented solution to achieve your goal.
Workplace improvement
Few would want to work in a dark, badly lit environment, but attempts to improve a work space simply by adding more artificial light, atriums, roof lights or traditional windows can be disappointing and costly; as well as bringing more light, these traditional methods can also bring associated negative consequences such as glare, solar heat gain, heat loss, major disruption to working patterns and high implementation and running costs.
Solatube® Daylighting Systems suffer none of these negative consequences and the only natural resource they run on is daylight – and that is free and abundant.
Solatube® Daylighting Systems can transfer daylight into areas that traditional methods could not achieve; relatively small roof penetrations into almost all roof types are possible, including standing seam, composite roof panel, green roof, as well as the more conventional tiled roof styles.
Solatube® Daylighting Systems are completely maintenance-free and incorporate patented and proven technologies to give unrivalled performance and peace of mind. Supply and installation can be arranged into all types of buildings – please contact us to discuss your specific application.
Reducing energy costs
According to the Building Research Establishment there are each year 2,646 hours of available daylight when sky conditions are above 20,000 lux – an average of 7.25 hours a day. 20,000 lux is the realistic level at which electric lighting can be dimmed or extinguished in a well-designed daylighting scheme. As a comparison, full summer, clear sky conditions would be approximately 100,000 lux.
Solatube® Daylighting Systems are more efficient than any other daylighting system at transferring this free and abundant light source into your building, so they can effectively eliminate or significantly reduce your reliance on electric lighting during the hours of daylight. Energy costs are saved not only from the reduction in use of lighting, but also the requirement to remove the heat gain that is the by-product of electric lighting. Solatube® Daylighting Systems do not suffer from heat loss in winter or solar gain in summer thus your heating and cooling costs do not rise significantly during these months – a further cost-saving.
Solatube® Daylighting Systems can be integrated with photo sensors and motion detectors to combine with existing or new electric lighting systems to maximize energy reductions. Sensors can also be used to enhance the efficiency of centralized controls by switching off lights in unoccupied areas during normal working hours as well as after hours.
Reducing your carbon footprint
The UK Government has committed to reduce the UK's carbon emissions by 60% by the year 2050. Just under 50% of the UK's CO2 emissions are attributable to building occupancy. Sustainable methods of lighting are, therefore, high on the agenda as they can typically save up to 75% of a building's lighting demands.
Solatube® Daylighting Systems are recognised worldwide as a method of sustainable lighting; in the USA, The LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System is a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high performance, sustainable buildings. Solatube® Daylighting Systems have been used in many LEED Certified projects and can earn or contribute to the following credits:
- Energy & Atmosphere
- Materials & Resource
- Indoor Environmental Quality
- Innovation & Design Process
Similarly, under the UK's BREEAM programme, Solatube® Daylighting Systems daylighting devices can earn BREEAM credits under the categories of Health and Well-being Section HW01 and the Energy Section E01.
More and more enlightened organisations are now specifying tubular daylighting devices in all new-build projects, ensuring that the maximum benefit from this free resource is fully utilised. Customers who have already installed Solatube® Daylighting Systems include BP, Shell, The Environment Agency, Sainsburys, Marks and Spencer, Asda, Tesco, The Home Office, schools, health care facilities, distribution centres, secure environments, call centres, local authorities and NHS Trusts.
