CP Electronics’ Lighting Controls Help Energy Efficiency at Somerstown Community Hub

The UK’s premier lighting controls specialist CP Electronics has supplied a variety of lighting solutions for a new municipal facility, Somerstown Central, which has been constructed in the Somerstown district in Portsmouth.  Specified by M&E services providers Working Environments, Southampton, all lighting controls, both stand- alone and networked were supplied by CP Electronics, including the sophisticated fully addressable Rapid lighting control system.

Somerstown Central is a £12m municipal facility built in the Somerstown area of Portsmouth which contains an array of local amenities including a community centre, youth centre, dance studios, sports hall, health centre, café  and housing offices. The building has huge glass panels, wooden arches, vast airy rooms and corridors and spreads out over 4,000sq metres.

At the heart of the design are a range of sustainability features and one of the key areas that has been addressed through the lighting control system is the variable occupancy of many of the spaces. CP controls provide presence and absence detection throughout a range of areas within the building.  By utilising CP’s Rapid hard wired DALI 64 LCM, mini DALI PIR, CPIR presence detectors, MWS3A microwave detectors and a front end PC, the building benefits from a sophisticated energy saving lighting system.   Users can also see with DALI feedback what lights are working correctly.   With training, users can also adjust PIR timeouts and maintain building with the front end computer.  Standalone compact ceiling mounted PIRs, EBDSPIR-PRMs were also installed throughout the building to control lighting and maximise energy savings.

Passive Infra-red (PIR) detectors with push button timers have been installed in low occupancy areas such as toilets, whilst the larger office areas are being controlled by microwave detectors. The PIR detectors switch the lighting on in response to movement, whilst removing the opportunity for human error in forgetting to switch the lights off. The microwave detectors have been used to turn on the lighting as soon as the door begins to open, rather than waiting to detect presence detection. Meeting rooms that require lighting to be switched off manually now have ‘no neutral’ PIR switches installed with a manual override.

CP Electronics’ lighting controls have contributed to the building being granted a BREEAM Excellent rating.