Case Study - Energy Saving Month - Department of Treasury and Finance

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189 ROYAL STREET - LIGHTING UPGRADE

It's a well-known fact that office buildings are major consumers of electricity. Lighting can often represent around 50% of electricity consumed by typical office tenancies.

One of the easiest ways to reduce energy use and cut greenhouse gas emissions is to ensure that office illumination is effective and energy efficient.

An excellent example of just how easy it is to save energy and cut office electricity bills is the lighting upgrade undertaken by the Department of Community Development (DCD) and the Department of Health (DoH) who co-occupy a large office building in Royal Street, East Perth.

As the building was 10 years old, the two departments realised it was time to review their lighting systems. They discovered that they could make significant savings on their energy bills simply by upgrading the light fittings.

The upgrade involved three key steps - replacing the existing low loss ballasts with electronic ballasts, installing reflectors and new diffusers, and replacing the original double mono-phosphor tubes in each fitting with single tri-phosphor tubes, which have higher light output.

With more than 5,300 fittings to refurbish, the initial cost to undertake the change-over was calculated at around $450,000. To enable the upgrade to take place, the Department of Community Development and Department of Health made an application to the Sustainable Energy Development Office to finance the work through an Energy Smart Government interest free-loan with a payback period of approximately five and a half years.

The financial savings resulting from the lighting upgrade are significant - so too are the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Data collected pre- and post-upgrade reveal a 21% reduction in energy use each year. In monetary terms, this equates to an annual cost saving of $32,000 for the Department of Community Development and $54,000 for the Department of Health. These savings, on the two departments' energy bills, go towards repayment of the SEDO loan, enabling the project to pay for itself in under six years.

The lighting upgrade has also reduced the departments' greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 1,000 tonnes a year.

This relatively simple exercise, of replacing out-dated high energy consuming light fittings with more efficient versions, proves that big savings and big benefits can be achieved when you switch your thinking to energy efficient lighting.