LIGHTING: Do Occupancy Sensors Use Energy?

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Permalink Reply by Dennis McCarthy on February 10, 2011 at 10:23am

My take on this is that a great percentage of solid state lighting will have some degree of

interoperabilty- How the're powered is a non issue( yes varying amounts of energy are used

whether using ZigBee/ WiFi/ even a remote control from your local hardware store) But...

 The bigger part of the picture we have for generations wasted kWhrs by leaving lights on or

by over lighting, failing to harvest sunlight etc. Now we have a better way to do the task of lighting.

As sure as brick phones led to phones w/ cameras , then to smart phones - Lighting products(SSL) WILL

evolve into feature packed items- most general lighting will have controls within 5 years!

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Permalink Reply by Kyle Brown on February 11, 2011 at 7:02am

What i'm after is the watt consumption by the control systems, infrared sensors, etc...   Specifically, i'd love to know how many watts used by infrared sensors.  I looked into this on Google but didn't find anything.  If infrared sensors constantly consume 5 watts (or something in that neighborhood - i'm just making this number up) and LED's only consume 13 watts while they are running, it would seem that the infrared sensors could use more energy than they save if paired up with LED's.

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Permalink Reply by Dennis McCarthy on February 11, 2011 at 7:40am

Hi Kyle

 The sensors from Johnson controls& Schneider draw very little we're talking milliamps,

I plugged in my WiFi airport in to a Wattsup energy meter, its using 3.7 watts.

 

That can be considered a range for  2 representative control systems that are

common. Bear In mind that reductions in the amount of watts to run a Led light engine

come down each season( more or less)- So the equation becomes even more favorable-

In summation - not much energy is used for the task. For more detailed info , J- controls.\,

Seimens or Schneiders , website can lead you to product specifications. 

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