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."
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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.