For the 5th year in succession SNX projects were the most widely recognised at the Government’s Annual Energy Awards across a diverse range of technologies and disciplines in both the Private and Public Sector.
This year saw SNX advance their deployment of Waveguide Lighting systems with large installations at the NSC, in both the Main and Small Sports Hall, and also at Nobles Hospital, with installations in the two arterial corridors, as well as in the laundry. Working closely with the DOI, the installations on the hospital corridors won the Award for Biggest Saving – Public Sector, due to the enormous savings made and the significant improvement in the quality of lighting.
The energy consumption reduction equates to an annual saving of ? 48,450, with a capital cost of just ? 109,273.00 (including professional fees), providing a simple payback of only 2.25 years. With the expected life of the equipment at 18 years, lifetime savings of ?872,100.00 and a cost benefit ratio of 7.98 are achieved by this project. The use of this unique technology allowed the removal of 430 existing light fittings, to be replaced by just 216 new LED sealed fittings, thus compliant with infection control, giving a 50% reduction in the number of fittings.
The energy consumption of the new fittings controlled by the infra-red occupancy detection, which reduces the power by 80% when the corridor is unoccupied (overnight), but maintains 25% lighting levels on setback, achieves an overall energy consumption reduction of 86.5%. The fittings installed achieve an efficacy of 110.79 lumens/watt where Building Regulations require a minimum of 60 lumens/watt, so a much better quality of lighting is provided as well.
Using LED light in a completely unique and revolutionary way, the patented Waveguide system, which was brought to the Island by SNX and trialled extensively before commercial release last year, shines light horizontally into an acrylic rod from a single LED light at each end and the encapsulated light is then distributed to the target area by a dedicated reflector, giving the unit a much greater range, hence the requirement of less fittings. Combined with the fact that not only does each fitting contain less LED lights, but the energy demand required to drive the LED itself is far less than traditional forms of lighting, which gives the LEDs much greater longevity.
Waveguide Lighting has now won the tender to supply all the external lighting to Nobles Hospital, installation of which is due to start later this month. In addition, and of enormous potential benefit to the Isle of Man, nine further surveys have been conducted on Government sites which project an estimated ?3.3M of savings against a capital investment of just ?560,000. This work was also recognised by the award of a High Commendation to SNX by the Energy Awards judging panel. These surveys are now with Government officers for consideration.
SNX, in conjunction with developer Complete Construction Services (CCS), also won the Energy Award for Best Innovation in the Private Sector for their development of a large Eco House called The New Vickerage. A highly efficient private residence of 6000 ft2, it boasts increased levels of insulation, low air leakage and an integration of the very latest Renewable Technologies provided by SNX. Based around a stratified Thermal Store, energy from a Solar Thermal system, an Air Source Heat Pump and even two log burning stoves are fed in to the store to provide all the heating and Domestic Hot water required. Together with a Solar PV installation, the utility requirement across the development is vastly reduced from a traditionally built property.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, SNX was awarded High Commendation for its involvement on the Design Committee on the new Henry Bloom Noble School with the specific remit of assessing the Air Tightness viability of the building at design stage and to oversee the construction through to final Air Tightness Test. SNX was recognised for this in the Best Practice – Public Sector category, having been appointed to the role at the request of the client, the Department of Education & Children.
It is considerably easier to amend the design of a building at drawing stage than post construction and to then have SNX Air Test Engineers working with the contractors at specific junctures during the actual development to ensure procedures were being followed, and to advise on potential pitfalls ahead, proved to be the ideal involvement. Once the impact of the contractors work in meeting the strict levels of Air Tightness set by the client ahead of the final Air Tightness test, was understood, the attention to detail and Best Practice construction ensured that the levels of Air leakage were met on the final test.
Sadly, to date, this is still the only project on the Isle of Man where a specialist in Air Tightness testing and Compliance Development has been appointed at Design stage. We have shown beyond all doubt that this is false economy and should be adopted on every development as Best Practice.
Steve Brown, Managing Director of Castletown based SNX said ‘Once again our continued awareness of the latest Energy Efficient Technologies and Best Practices within the construction sector brings recognition through the Energy Awards for the 5th straight year, which we are rightly proud of. It is a great platform to benchmark the volume and quality of work we deliver against others operating in this sector and our success rate speaks for itself. We will always support the Energy Awards, and indeed have a number of projects already lined up to submit for consideration next year. We hope in the meantime that the Government leads the way for the private sector, by adopting themselves, the efficient levels of build development we provide as well as enforcing a more rigid regime of compliance testing on new and existing properties, making every effort to meet the commitments outlined in their own Policy document on Sustainable Development and Mitigating Climate Challenges. This is long overdue and it would be nice to see activity rather than rhetoric.’
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