Campus facility directors are under pressure to lower their energy and maintenance costs, while also improving the functionality and appearance of their facilities. Since electric lighting is one of the largest consumers of electricity in K-12 schools, progressive districts are looking for proven strategies and best practices for implementing lighting upgrades. Graybar and Acuity Brands can help you meet this challenge.

1. BE A
CONTROL
FREAKBy Tim Hogan, Acuity Brands Lighting

2. UNDERSTANDING ENERGY
COSTS IN YOUR SCHOOL
BUT THERE ARE SOME CHALLENGES...
“I love what lighting can do for a campus and how it can improve
its visual appeal. It can make learning more productive and with
the latest technology, it can save a lot of energy at the same time.
I’m interested in creating a better space and a better learning
environment that costs less to power and maintain.”
-Tim Hogan

3. THE EDUCATOR’S CHALLENGE
Think about your campus. What percentage
of the lighting is controlled at the switch?
I mean that a person turns it on or off
manually every day. One of the things we
know about lighting is that it is left on. One
of the greatest ways to save energy, as we
all know from yelling at our kids, is to turn
the lights off when you leave the room.

4. THE FACILITY DIRECTOR’S CHALLENGE
A facility director is challenged with
improving the campus environment while
spending less money. When there is a hall
of fame for people who can squeeze the
most out of a nickel, a facility chief will be
the first person inducted!
One of the things we know is that K12
schools and higher education facilities
spend about $14 billion on energy through
the course of the year. That’s more than we
spend on the school nutrition program. And
we also know that at least a third of that
energy is wasted.
We are approaching something like $5
billion that is sent to the utility company.
Don’t get me wrong, I love utility companies
but I would rather keep the money for
education.
I want to help facility leaders figure out
how we can save money while improving
the learning environment. First, we need
to understand where the opportunity is. I
am a huge fan of using data, analytics and
research to understand what efforts we
need to take to produce the best results.
IN EDUCATIONAL
FACILITIES,
APPROXIMATELY
$5 BILLION
IS SPENT ON
WASTED ENERGY

5. 1. INEFFICIENT LIGHTING
When I looked at the educational stats
from the Department of Energy a couple of
things stood out to me. The vast majority of
the lighting in the space is linear fluorescent.
This is probably not a surprise to anyone.
HOW DO EDUCATIONAL
FACILITIES WASTE SO
MUCH ENERGY?
85% OF LIGHT
SOURCES IN
EDUCATIONAL
FACILITIES
IS LINEAR
FLUORESCENT

6. 2. LACK OF CONTROL
The other thing that was striking is that 83%
of the lighting is not controlled. There is no
lighting control other than the light switch.
And I can tell you how many educators and
facility leaders I talk to who said “Oh, we
have a training program…we have signs…
we teach people how to turn the lights off”
I always say how is that working out for
you? And they say, “Not too well.” It’s
really difficult to get people to change
their behavior.
What we know is that more than one-third or
about 40% of the energy that is spent in the
school is spent on lighting. If you combine
heating, cooling, air handling – those three
add up to be about what lighting is.
THERE IS A HUGE OPPORTUNITY JUST BY
TURNING OFF THE LIGHTS AND IMPLEMENTING
SMART CONTROLS THAT CAN SAVE MONEY,
EXTEND LAMP LIFE AND GIVE YOU A LOT OF
FLEXIBILITY AND DESIGN.

7. The Data Logger is about the size of a hockey
puck and it has a sensor and a photocell. They
come in a case of about 40 and you spread
them throughout your campus. The point is
to distribute the 40 sensors in a way so that
the data you collect is representative of the
entire campus. And what happens is it pulls
back a lot of data and after three weeks
you collect all of the sensors, plug them in
and your computer sucks the data out and
runs reports. Now you can now see exactly
when the lights are on and exactly when the
space was occupied.
FIND THE ENERGY LEAKS
IN YOUR SCHOOL
I encourage people to understand where they are spending their energy and where we want
to spend it. I recommend a tool called a Data Logger. And I don’t know how many of you have
tried this, but it is a great way for facility leaders to do their homework.

8. The great news is all the data gets pulled into a simple bar chart that you can give to the boss.
This example is from a high school. What you can see is when the spaces were unoccupied
completely we would save 42% of the lighting energy just by turning the lights off.
The blue bars represent when the light is on
and the red bar shows when the space was
occupied. You can see someone turned on
the lights in the storage room and forgot to
turn them off after they left. This is a huge
opportunity for savings.
Another good example here is the locker
room. We definitely could save some money
there by turning off the lights.

9. Here is one that was done in a middle
school. In this school we see that restroom
lights were on all the time and the spaces
were unoccupied about a third of the time.
The gymnasium has the same problem.
We have done aggregated versions of
this Data Logger data to basically six
aggregated reports. There is a report for
small, medium and large K12 schools and a
small, medium and large university building.
What I tell people is you don’t have to do
the homework. You can copy and cheat
from someone else. It’s going to be just
about right, but if you want to show a
significant before and after state this is a
great project to do.
+ Contact Graybar to save time and receive these
helpful cheat sheets for your facilitiy.
Want to find the energy leaks in your school? Do the data logger project. Then install sensors
in a few key areas. Then redo the data logger project and now you have results and ROI that
you can use when you scale the project across the entire campus. It’s a great way to move
forward in a scientific way.
Read on to learn more about sensors »

10. Over the years, I’m constantly told by facility
folks that the sensor project was one of the
simplest, fastest, greatest impact and best
return on investment projects they’ve done.
But before you take on that sensor project
you have to have a goal plan. How do you
have a big plan that allows you to focus and
act quickly? It’s about finding an application
space or technology and testing, piloting
and validating that it works. After testing,
you scale it across your campus to gain
maximum benefits and then come back
and solve the next application.
IMPROVING USER EXPERIENCE
WITH SENSOR TECHNOLOGY

11. CREATING A GOOD LIGHTING
EXPERIENCE
So the design challenge is determining the
right amount of light to use when the space
is unoccupied. Traditional sensors can’t see
through obstacles or walls and only have
simplistic responses.
You want to look for a solution that uses
multiple technologies including passive
infrared, it may use ultrasonic or
microphonic. It may use a combination
of those technologies to see what’s
happening in the space so that it can respond
accordingly.
To create a good lighting experience, we
want sensors that enable something more
than a simplistic on or off. We are looking
for sensors that have multiple stage output.
When the sensor determines it can see, the
sensor can turn the lights off. In addition,
the sensor can then wait to make sure that
people are really gone. Ok, they haven’t
been back for 10 minutes now, so I’m going
to start setting back the HVAC or close
some air handlers.

12. We need lots of options. One of the
things you see when we look at schools,
particularly bigger schools are like a small
city. There are classrooms, hallways,
stairwells, offices, bathrooms, gymnasiums,
locker rooms, kitchens, cafeterias and
storage closets that may require different
kinds of sensor implementations.
So it’s not like you can go buy a truck
load of one sensor and you go put them
anywhere and have it turn out to be a good
experience. You can turn all the lights
off, but you might not have the kind of
experience that you are hoping to have.
HOW CAN I PROGRAM THE
EVENT TO CREATE A BETTER
EXPERIENCE?

13. THREE TYPES OF SENSORS
The first is PASSIVE INFRARED and it’s
the oldest of the sensor technology. The way
to think about this is every facet of the
sensor is sending out a beam that covers
its angle of the space and it’s almost like a
remote point-and-shoot thermometer. It
knows the temperature of things within its
line of sight. And so it’s happy, it doesn’t care
what the temperature is as long as it doesn’t
change. As long as the temperature doesn’t
change, then it is assuming that nothing is
moving in its space.
ULTRASONIC deals with sound airwaves
and sound waves to sense when something
is in the room. And MICROPHONIC is
essentially listening for sounds in the room.
The great thing about controls is that they
are very flexible and there are a number of
tactics to maximize the control system. A
simplistic and inappropriate control solution
for a space will result in a bad experience for
people who have to work, teach and learn in
those spaces.
Passive
Infrared
“I see you.”
Ultrasonic
“I feel you.”
Microphonic
“I hear you.”

14. UNDERSTANDING WALL, CEILING AND
PHOTOCELL SENSOR SOLUTIONS
To get started with a sensor project, we ask
folks to provide a floor plan to Graybar and
our Controls specialist who goes through
the whole layout of your building and marks
up appropriate sensor technology for the
space based on the room size, dimension
and whether or not you need more than
one sensor.
There are two kinds of sensors mounting
solutions, wall mounted and ceiling
mounted. The wall mounted is the
simplest, but the ceiling mounted gives
you a little more flexibility.

15. UNDERSTANDING WALL
SENSOR SOLUTIONS
Wall Mounted Solutions
Wall sensors are very simple to install. You
simply take the old switch out of the wall,
wire up the hot ground and put it back in. It
has sensitivity controls baked into it. It’s very
controllable. This is where you want to make
sure you’ve done the proper testing because
reconfiguration involves engaging facility
management to recalibrate.
Wall mounted can be added to any space
that is up to about 20 X 20 or a typical
small office. You typically wouldn’t put
them in a bathroom or any kind of small
space or closets. They can come in
multiple configurations but you have single
technology sensors and dual technology
sensors for wall sensors.
It’s important to choose the right kind of wall
switch for the right kind of space. A copy
room with people moving in and out would
require a different sensor compared to an
office setting where people are sitting which
might need a microphonic sensor and a
passive infrared.

16. UNDERSTANDING CEILING MOUNTED
SENSOR SOLUTIONS
Ceiling Mounted Solutions
Ceiling sensors are typically Passive
Infrared and have a much broader
spectrum of coverage in odd shape
rooms and come in single and double
technologies. Some characteristics of
ceiling mounted solutions include:
Best choice for radial coverage
with small motion
User adjusted time delay
Push-button programming,
accessible without tools
Available in low voltage and
line voltage models
Integrated photocell available
Typical Coverage Pattern for a Ceiling Sensor Mounted at 10’

17. UNDERSTANDING PHOTOCELL
SENSOR SOLUTIONS
The other important sensor is the photocell.
Photocells can be very effective in
switching lights off. They are more effective
if you have LED sources in the space and
it allows you to dim the LED light fixture
to compensate for daylight. So if I have a
certain amount of lighting contributed by
daylight, the photocell tells the fixture to
dim the appropriate amount so that the
occupant has the right amount of lighting.
Photocells recognize light changing and
have algorithms programmed in them
so when a cloud passes over, they don’t
instantly turn the lights up to full bright.
This algorithm recognizes that the lights
have been dim for only a few seconds. “It
will give you a few seconds before start
easing up the ramp speed”.
It does that change of light intensity up
and down in a thoughtful way. There is
programming so that it’s not distracting to
the user.
I was in an older department store where
there were a lot of skylights, lights and
photocells. The lights were turning on and
off – like a really bad concert. It was very
distracting. Make sure you have a photocell
that is able to adapt and provide a very
comfortable experience.

18. MORE SENSOR SOLUTIONS
X Point Sensors
A very exciting new technology Acuity has
is called X Point. These sensors are wireless
and powerless. The wall switch itself
requires no lines to it. It requires no power
to it. The act of flipping the switch creates
enough energy to generate the wireless
signal to the other equipment in the room to
take action.
X Point is now available and is shipping and
is optimized for a space where wireless is
ideal. We have five different communication
protocols for our sensor offers.
The occupancy sensors and the photocells
are also wireless and require no power.
They get their power from the ambient light
during the day.

19. Fixture
Mount
Sensor
Embedded
Sensor
Pole
Mounted
Sensor
WHEN SENSORS GO OUTSIDE
For some reason when you go outside, we
start sensors proximity sensors. It’s not very
attractive, but these sensors can be bolted
on. It works, but newer fixture designs have
the sensors embedded.
The Pole Mounted Sensor is mounted at a
lower level like a parking garage. Parking
garages have sensors independent from
the fixtures and they recognize that there is
activity on the floor. The sensor will turn the
light on for a whole zone or floor.
We don’t want to just light up the person
walking through the space. The boss
says that’s the equivalent of lighting
up the victim and not the perpetrator.
So that sensor needs to understand that
I’m lighting up the whole space so that the
occupant can feel comfortable and see and
know that they are safe for the entire floor.
It’s all about choosing the right technology
for your space.

20. One of the things we know from our data
studies is that stairwells and corridors are
mostly empty and unoccupied but the
lights are always on. While working on a
lighting project for a large university, we
chose the Lithonia Lighting WL solution
for the stairwells.
It’s an LED option with an integrated
sensor and when the space is unoccupied
the luminaire can be configured to operate
at 10%.
NEED A QUICK WIN? CHECK
OUT YOUR STAIRWELLS

21. CHECK OUT YOUR STAIRWELLS
We know that stairways are unoccupied
95% of the times. So for 95% of the time I
am using 10% of the energy. The beautiful
thing about this solution is that when the
third floor stairwell becomes occupied the
luminaire immediately lights up because
LED is an instant source. It goes from off to
full bright instantly. Even a fluorescent takes
up to 90 seconds to become full bright.
This fixture on the third floor then sends the
signal out to its neighbors on the second
and fourth floors and those fixtures become
full bright at the same time. So as I’m
travelling up or down the stairs, the lights
are coming on ahead of me and I’m never
walking in a dark space.
This is a good example of how Smart Sensors
integrated with a layer of modern lighting
technology can create a space that works
better, costs less and maintenance is not an
issue because of the long-life of LEDs.
5
1
3
2
4
The bottom line is you can save up to 90% of the energy 97% of the time. At the university
the payback was less than two years and they it be saving $30,000 a year after that.

22. THANKS FOR READING!
I hope you enjoyed this quick primer on lighting controls and how to be a control freak in
your facility. As you can see it’s not hard to save energy in your facility you just have to start
somewhere. And installing lighting controls is an easy, cost-effective place to start.
Get a free consultation and learn to be a control freak!
Visit graybar.com/control-freak or call 1-800-GRAYBAR.
ABOUT GRAYBAR
Graybar is a leading distributor of electrical,
communications, data networking and
security products and services. Through
decades of experience and vast resources,
we developed Graybar PowerSmart®
to
provide energy efficient and intelligent
strategies and products designed to deliver
value for each of our customers.
ABOUT ACUITY BRANDS
Acuity Brands is the North American
market leader and one of the world’s
leading providers of innovative lighting
systems. With a comprehensive portfolio
and proven expertise in indoor and outdoor
luminaires, controls and daylighting,
Acuity provides customers with integrated,
intelligent solutions from one company.
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