When the Integrated Lighting Campaign officially launched during the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2020 Better Buildings Summit, Kenny Seeton, Central Plant and Energy manager for California State University (CSU) Dominguez Hills, presented an ambitious plan to integrate an LED smart lighting system with the building automation system (BAS) at CSU-Dominguez Hills’s Welch Hall building through occupancy-based unified controls. He hoped the project would yield the kind of undeniable return on investment that would make future integration projects an easy sell.

A year later, the numbers are in. Not only does Seeton project over 30 percent overall energy savings at Welch Hall, but the chilled water used to cool the building dropped about 50 percent in usage from last year.

The BAS helps buildings operate smarter by tapping into a wealth of actionable data collected from a dense grid of sensors installed in luminaires throughout the building. These intelligent sensors can enable energy-saving actions by responding to environmental triggers and adjusting conditions accordingly—be it turning lighting on and off, heating or cooling a space within a building, or lowering window blinds. COVID-19 made the integration even more critical. Without it, the building’s energy would remain fully operational from 6:00 a.m. to about 6:00 p.m., regardless if there were 20 people in the entire building or 200. Now that there’s generally less occupants in buildings, Seeton says integrated lighting helps deliver lighting right when and where it’s needed.

With occupancy-based sensors, energy managers like Seeton have full control to customize room heating and cooling to complement current room temperature. For example, Seeton learned that offices facing the southwest corner of the building would get too hot during lunch if the damper was shut off and not cooling the space. The smart connected lighting system allowed him to customize which rooms exactly he could shut off the damper—interior office, for example—and leave it on for those with windows receiving direct sunlight.

Seeton noted there are other non-energy benefits that could be explored. For example, integrated lighting can help increase comfort, support digital wayfinding—especially in larger campuses—and, in the age of COVID-19, enable contact tracing. Currently, Seeton uses the BAS to automatically adjust lighting to suit environmental conditions, but occupants are given control to override those settings should they need less or more lighting. “Almost everyone was super happy. I wish there was a happiness meter so we could quantify it. Once the system is in place you don’t need to change or remove bulbs or rewire switches for different room configurations; it’s just set it and forget it.” All future adjustments can be made remotely through the software interface.

There are also financial incentives for making the switch to integrated lighting. Many utilities offer rebates and other incentives for implementing energy savings measures. Seeton says he can get $490 for every metric ton of CO2 saved. “Smart connected lighting requires a higher investment than installing manual light switches. There are definitely cheaper systems to install, but none that can compare to the occupant wellness and comfort and long-term savings of integrated lighting,” says Seeton.

Seeton says that by installing integrated lighting he is essentially future proofing his buildings. Integrated lighting can make it easier to adopt code changes or respond to events like the pandemic. The opportunities are endless—from asset tracking, wayfinding, space utilization, and HVAC savings—and even more once the technology matures.

Seeton recognizes that he is not using integrated lighting to its fullest potential—at least not yet. But he’s excited to explore the possibilities. He’s scheduled to install integrated lighting in two more buildings this year at CSU-Dominguez Hills, then working with IT to connect lighting to their wayfinding app. The plan is to have the entire campus done within the next 2 to 3 years.