I am working on an office building that has overhead lighting that is controlled based on occupancy sensors. The fixtures are grouped per 3,6 meters and there is no manual override. Additionally we include task lighting on the desks with on/midlevel/off possibilities. Is this sufficient control to meet the credit requirements? Or do we also have to include a manual override for the overhead lighting in addition to the tasklighting to meet the full "off" requirement?
And suppose we include the manual override for the overhead lighting, is it OK if this is grouped per 3,6 meters (possibly including mutiple workstation?In my opinion is does not make sense to have individual on/off switches for the overhead lighting in an open office environment when there are tasklights that provide sufficient individual control.
Thanks!
Lauren Sparandara
Sustainability ManagerGoogle
LEEDuser Expert
997 thumbs up
December 9, 2014 - 12:54 pm
Hi Jeroen,
In LEED v4 you need to provide individual lighting controls that enable occupants to adjust the lighting to suit their individual tasks and preferences for 90% of the individual occupants. You also - in LEEDv4 - need to provide at least three lighting levels or scenes (on, off, midlevel). Midlevel is 30-70% of the maximum illumination level.
Just like in LEEDv3 you need to consider the Individual Occupant Spaces as distinct spaces from the Multi-occupant spaces. The space you have described sounds like a series of individual occupant spaces and so I think you're spot on with the task lights. Just make sure you consider all components of the LEED v4 credit.
Good luck!
Jeroen Sap
LEED AP BD+CDeerns Nederland B.V.
3 thumbs up
December 10, 2014 - 3:16 am
thanks Lauren for your quick response. My only concern is with the individual spaces in the open office plan. They have task lights with control but as long as the overhead lighting (base level lighting) is only switched based on occupancy (without manual override), would that be sufficient? When I follow the reference guide by the letter, this does not provide the option to individually switch ALL lighting off. But on the other hand in my opinion it provides a lot of flexibility.
Lauren Sparandara
Sustainability ManagerGoogle
LEEDuser Expert
997 thumbs up
December 10, 2014 - 4:46 pm
Hi Joroen,
Other users should correct me if I am wrong but - if LEED v4 is handled like LEED v3 was in the case of open offices areas - then you really should see an open office area as a series of individual workstations and - in that case - you just need to worry about the controllability required for a series of individual workstations.