DesignLights Consortium Seeks Assistance for Study of Non-Energy Benefits of Networked Lighting and other Building Controls

September 7, 2021

As it seeks to quantify the non-energy benefits of networked lighting and advanced building controls, the DesignLights Consortium (DLC) is seeking the input of facility managers for a short online survey. Results of this research will yield monetized estimates useful for product marketing, efficiency program incentive promotion, and facility management decision making.

“Networked lighting controls (NLC) and other advanced building controls have reported benefits beyond energy savings, including improved occupant productivity and comfort, reduced maintenance, improved space utilization and lower carbon emissions,” DLC Technical Director Stuart Berjansky said. “Aside from limited case study evidence, however, minimal data exists to support and quantify these advantages. The DLC’s study aims to close that gap.”

The study is focusing on four building types: office buildings, hospitals and health care facilities, educational buildings, and warehouse and light industrial facilities, and covers a range of advanced controls including NLCs; integration of building systems that allow information sharing between NLCs and other systems; building IoT that provides data about the conditions within a building; and analytics applications that collect information from building systems.

With a goal of completing surveys by the end of September, the DLC is seeking facility managers to complete a 15- to 20-minute web-based anonymous survey, and to send their building occupants a link to complete a separate five-minute survey. Both surveys ask respondents about their experiences with various control measures and include comparison questions to establish relative values among different non-energy benefits. The DLC plans to complete the survey phase of the study by the end of September.

To protect confidentiality, the DLC is not requesting confidential data, the release of sensitive customer contact information or sharing of customer identities. In all cases, the DLC will not divulge any information or results about individual buildings or persons contacted.  

Facility managers interested in the survey should send an email requesting a survey link to the DLC’s contractor, Lisa Skumatz of Skumatz Economic Research, at skumatz@serainc.com. To broaden the reach of this research, the DLC is also requesting design professionals, integrators, sales agents, manufacturers and contractors who have been involved relevant projects to inform their facility managers about the study. The DLC will provide a copy of survey results to any company that connects the study team with site managers who complete the survey.