SA Affordable Housing November / December 2017 // Issue: 67 | Page 22

FEATURES Proper lighting is essential for everyone When it comes to disposing of the lights once they give in, CFL have a specific way of disposal. “Most people don’t know this that CFL bulbs and incandescent have a specific way of disposal. LEDs conform to Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) environmental CE standards therefore making them safer to the environment and creating a sustainable green future,” he advises. CFLs take about 600 years to breakdown into the earth so they cannot be thrown into the bin and into landfill. LEDs are not filament based or wire based electricity bulbs. They are electronic-based, which means they consume less power and it’s easier to make them light up. They are recyclable and on the inside, is a printed circuit board. They also last longer because they don’t get hot. “For example, if you touch the old yellow bulb, you’ll get burnt, literally. The CFL, you can get burnt but they are not as hot. If you touch a LED you won’t get burnt at all,” he says. “New technology is making LED solutions cheaper to implement while being more robust in operations. For the affordable housing market, typical CFL last anywhere between one and three years, while LED lighting fixtures can last if 10 years with little variance in pricing from inception,” Ogle states. "New technology is making LED solutions cheaper to implement while being more robust in operations." 20 NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2017 AFFORDABLE SA HOUSING This makes maintenance costs for residence much lower. An added benefit of the low wattage means that circuit breakers and overall installation costs are more affordable allowing for newer technologies to be deployed. LIGHTING IN PUBLIC SPACES Government and various municipalities have adopted the use of energy efficient lighting for street and public lights. In 2008 the Department of Minerals and Energy proposed a regulation in terms of norms and standards for reticulation services that all street lights must be fitted with energy efficient bulbs. The Illumination Engineering Society of South Africa (IESSA) responded to the draft regulations by suggesting the following rewording, ‘All streetlight systems shall be converted to energy efficient technologies, using light sources with an efficient technologies, using light sources with a luminous efficacy of at least 70lm/W, without reducing the minimum lighting levels beyond those stipulated by the current guidelines as contained in stipulated by the current guidelines, as contained in SANS 10098, Lighting of Public Thoroughfares, Part I and II.’ Although they faced many challenges around the implementation of this due to size requirements of the lights, the use of solar luminaries has been implemented on different roads in Johannesburg such as Paul Kruger Road and Daveyton Road. BEKA Schréder, manufacturer of luminaires and glass fibre reinforced polyester (GRP) poles, says that technologies are available to significantly improve the energy efficiency of street lighting.