The Client
The Queens Hotel Leeds, part of The QHotels Collection, re-opened its doors in June 2021 after undergoing a £16million transformation. Celebrating 85 years in the city, the modernised hotel not only pays homage to its rich and iconic history, but most importantly plays to the ‘new way’ people are now using exciting city-centre hotel spaces for coworking and socialising. The refurbishment included a much-anticipated renovation of all bedrooms, as well as adding an additional 17, bringing the room total to 232. The ground floor has also been totally transformed into a host of communal areas, with a ‘social hub’ at the heart of the hotel.
It is operated as part of The QHotels Collection, under the ownership of Aprirose. Aprirose was founded in 1987 and manages a portfolio of assets of more than £1 billion. Its hotel assets are under a number of international brands from the major franchises, including Hilton, Marriott and Accor, plus individual hotels under The QHotels Collection
The Brief
As part of the extensive hotel renovation work, the hotel identified the need for better quality, energy-efficient and more controllable architectural lighting for the front of the building. The legacy exterior lighting was aged, and the hotel’s dimming system had stopped working, meaning there was no control over the lighting with no capability to dim key areas.
Hotel management engaged Elektra Lighting to provide a basic design for the exterior lighting and then commissioned SaveMoneyCutCarbon to fully manage the project, from detailed survey to product specification, installation and testing.
The Solution
SaveMoneyCutCarbon Senior Project Manager Scott Smith completed the initial survey and audit, working closely with The Queens Hotel, and SaveMoneyCutCarbon lighting product specialist Gemma Turner drew up the detailed product specification, before Genco Electrical Projects were engaged to carry out the work, following a competitive tender process.
SaveMoneyCutCarbon has worked with Genco on previous large hotel projects in Suffolk and Kent.
Ecosense Lighting were selected to supply the luminaires. Ecosense is a leader in advanced LED lighting solutions across a broad range of architectural and commercial applications.
With over 70 Ecosense luminaires required for the external project, Casambi lighting controls were chosen as a more energy-efficient way to manage this number of lights across a large area, providing versatile dimming, timing and overall control. Casambi is the leader in modern wireless lighting control solutions based on Bluetooth Low Energy.
Bluetooth Low Energy is state-of-the-art wireless technology and the only low-power wireless technology in all modern smartphones, tablets and even smart watches, making it the only mainstream and future proof low power radio technology in the world.
Key aspects of the Casambi solution are great user experience, high performance and scalability, from basic individual fixture controls to industrial-scale solutions with cloud-based remote control, monitoring and data logging.
The technology provides a mesh network where all the intelligence of the system is replicated in every node, creating a system with no single points of failure. This fully distributed and symmetric architecture means that a unit can go offline and then “catch up” from others when it comes back online.
The self-organising wireless mesh network can control a large number of fixtures from any point, with firmware updates enabled wirelessly. The Casambi devices are smart on their own and only connect when needed.
Internet connection is not necessary for normal operation, just for user interface configurations to be sent or recalled from the cloud service.
Challenges
Working on a listed building, the installation team had to be precise about where to place cables and where to drill, following strict guidelines.
The installation team upgraded the existing external lighting distribution boards to meet electrical industry standards. Existing external lighting cabling was used where possible to minimise disruption and to maintain the existing look of the façade without the intrusion, additional work and cost of new cabling.
Full electrical installation tests were then carried out on all cabling before commissioning the Casambi units. The devices were set up in appropriate groups to allow the hotel to operate banks of lighting in a single area through a single switching operation. Each group has its own setting, including dimming levels and a description of its location.
The new installation gives the hotel greater control over the lighting with functions such as having the ability to turn off sections of lighting if required, and also dim down any section of lighting, both of which save energy.
Luminaires installed
Ecosense RISE F170 Single
RISE F170 Single is a powerful and compact exterior-rated LED luminaire, delivering up to 4,350 lumens, with an extensive selection of field-interchangeable lenses. Rise is a scalable system that provides a nearly limitless palette of options, packaged in a compact and elegant form factor that produces clean beautiful light.
Ecosense RISE F080 Single
RISE F080 Single is an ultra-compact, IP65-rated LED luminaire, delivering up to 1140 lumens, perfect for façade and floodlight applications with an extensive selection of field-interchangeable lenses.
Ecosense TROV Flex
The IP67-rated TROV Flex packs top-shelf performance into a discreet design that fits nearly anywhere and, with silicone lenses and housing, is impervious to almost anything, with great dimming performance. It is the smallest exterior graze on the market, able to fit into nooks and coves other luminaires simply cannot, and its robust construction means the casing will not “yellow” over time.
Results
- Total wattage of all lights = 855W
- Energy Usage per hour = 0.855kWh
- Cost per hour = £0.1197 (based on cost per kWh of £0.14)
- Annual energy cost (8 hours a day, 365 days a year) = £349.52
- With expected 50% electricity price increase to £0.21, annual cost = £524.29