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High Performance Lighting Guide

Understanding High Performance Lighting

What is High Performance Lighting?

High performance lighting (HPL) is lighting of excellent quality that is also very energy efficient. It is principally based on the use of new and improved fluorescent lighting technology. The HPL strategies featured in this guide are drawn from recent advances in commercial lighting for application to typical spaces found in residential buildings. It is important to note that these strategies not only save energy in the home but also serve to satisfy the consumer’s expectations for high quality lighting.

What are the key characteristics?

This guide addresses a number of key aspects of lighting quality: light color, accuracy of color rendering, control of glare, and presenting a harmonious relationship with the architectural characteristics of the home. It is principally intended to meet the need for ambient lighting, i.e. the light required to move through the room and perform basic activities. Task lighting may sometimes be part of the high performance lighting design, and is most frequently integrated into kitchens for tasks like food preparation, or in bathrooms at the mirror. Normally accent lighting, the third level of residential lighting, would be selected as part of an interior design scheme.

The room-by-room designs in this guide are coordinated with recommendations for fixtures, ballasts, and lamps. Following these guidelines will result in lighting with the crisp white color and brilliant color rendering of halogen lighting, “instant on” responsiveness, and no ballast hum. A home with a well-designed HPL installation will look as good as, or better than, a conventionally lit home.

What are the benefits of using HPL?

By employing HPL for all areas of the home, the energy used for lighting in a home can be reduced by 66% to 75%, thus reducing the cost of electricity for the homeowner. Because HPL runs cooler than standard incandescent lighting, during air conditioning periods the cooling load in the home will be lower, and the air conditioning energy and electricity costs will be reduced as well. During heating seasons, the more efficient HPL will not provide as much internal heat as standard incandescents, and this will be made up by the heating system. However, the home heating system is generally a more cost effective way of heating than are electric lights, so there will be overall energy and cost savings, even during winter months.

Another advantage of HPL is the durability of the lamps. Screw-in compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs last six times as long as standard incandescent “A” lamps, plug-in CFL lamps last ten times as long, and linear fluorescents have up to twenty times the life. Fewer lamp replacements, in a given time period with HPL, reduce cost and offer the distinct advantage of convenience when fixtures are hard to reach or often used.

What approaches are recommended to apply HPL?

There are three basic approaches to apply HPL, which run from the simplest to the most extensive improvements in lighting the home:

• Change the bulbs. For the simplest approach, install conventional fixtures and replace the bulbs with replacement compact fluorescent bulbs (typically a screw-in CFL with both ballast and lamp in one piece) wherever possible. See Specifications for Lamps and Bulbs for guidance.
• Change the fixtures. In this case, install hardwired fixtures that are designed for use with fluorescent lamps in place of the incandescent fixtures normally used. These fixtures include the appropriate ballast for the specified lamps. The Specifications for Fixtures section lists representative fixture types and sources. Note that currently there aren't any satisfactory fluorescent fixtures to replace small accent fixtures such as those for the MR11, MR16 and PAR20 incandescent lamps.
• Change the design. For a comprehensive approach, follow a lighting design throughout the home to optimize the energy efficiency and quality of lighting. This approach includes incorporating as much hardwired fluorescent lighting as possible to minimize the amount of portable lighting used in the house, which is usually incandescent. The lighting design should provide the ambient lighting needed for each room and, in some rooms, should also incorporate fluorescent solutions for task lighting, or even accent lighting.