Case study · Commercial & office
Executive summary
BP Southern Africa converted every light source in its offices to LED in one programme, covering general lighting, emergency lighting, undercover parking and feature downlighting. The panels were manufactured locally to suit the working environment and the illuminance levels required under occupational safety regulation. Annual lighting consumption fell from an estimated 124,256 kWh to 52,670 kWh, a reduction of about 58%, avoiding an estimated 74 tonnes of CO₂e a year. All figures on this page are estimates.
71586kWh
Energy saved per year
(estimated)
58.0%
Reduction in lighting
energy (estimated)
74tCO₂e
Carbon avoided per
year (estimated)
Figures are estimates derived from project close-out data and standard operating assumptions. They will vary with tariff, run hours and site conditions, and are indicative of this project rather than a guarantee of results on another site.
The project
The client is a large institutional owner and investor in commercial property, and the brief came with a property owner's logic rather than a tenant's: the building had to be upgraded once, properly, to a standard that would hold for the asset's remaining life. That ruled out the piecemeal lamp-for-lamp replacement that most office retrofits settle for.
It also meant the scope could not stop at the areas people notice. Emergency lighting in stairwells, IP-rated fittings in undercover parking and downlighting in reception and boardrooms all had to be brought across in the same programme. The whole installation also had to satisfy the illuminance levels required under occupational safety regulation, verified with the client's appointed electrical engineer rather than asserted by the supplier.
We presented samples in consultation with the appointed electrical engineer before anything was specified, so the engineer signed off on fittings he had seen performing in the building rather than on a datasheet.
The panels were then manufactured in our own local factory to suit the working environment: 60 W in the 1200 × 600 aperture and 40 W in the 600 × 600, sized against the lux levels the regulations require for the tasks in each area. Local manufacture mattered for two reasons. The wattage and output could be set to the building rather than to whatever sat in a distributor's container, and both the original lead time and any future replacement got shorter.
IP65 fittings went into the undercover parking. LED bulkheads with integrated emergency gear went into the stairwells, so life-safety lighting was upgraded in the same programme instead of being left as a legacy island. GU10 LED downlighters were used in reception and the boardrooms, where appearance carries as much weight as output.
| Area | Legacy installation | Lamphouse specification |
|---|---|---|
| Open-plan offices | Fluorescent troffers | Locally manufactured LED panel, 1200 × 600, 60 W |
| Cellular offices & meeting rooms | Fluorescent troffers | Locally manufactured LED panel, 600 × 600, 40 W |
| Stairwells | Legacy fittings with separate emergency gear | LED bulkhead with integrated emergency gear |
| Undercover parking | Unrated fluorescent battens | IP65-rated LED fittings |
| Reception & boardrooms | Halogen GU10 downlighters | LED GU10 downlighters |
Why it worked
Carried forward
The scope decision is the one worth repeating. Because emergency lighting, parking and feature downlighting were pulled into the same programme, the building has no legacy islands left to trip over at the next refurbishment. Retrofits that stop at the ceiling grid always come back.
Supporting references
Tell us the areas, the hours they run, the lux you need to hit and your capex envelope. We'll come back inside the week with a design, a fitting schedule and a payback model.
Related: Commercial & office LED