75F is a new-age company that is dedicated to discovering new solutions to old problems. It sees potential in IoT technology to improve everyday lives, and to save significant amounts of energy. In this exclusive exchange, we have Gaurav Burman, APAC President, 75F, discussing the company’s various energy-efficiency solutions, whilst stressing that facility managers nowadays are getting increasingly conscious of softer issues like energy efficiency and occupant well-being.
What are the positive implications of efficient lighting in workspaces? Conversely, what detriment effect can poor/inefficient lighting have on workers?
According to research, office workers that had efficient lightning in workplaces reported a better quality of life, more physical activity, and better sleep quality compared to workers in dim environments.
In a nutshell, proper office lighting promotes: improved accuracy and concentration at work; reduced risk of health problems and occupational accidents; enhanced productivity due to increased visibility and improved accuracy; and, cleaner, brighter workspace resulting in a more cheerful and active environment
Poor lighting can negatively affect employees in many different ways; it can be a safety hazard, affect quality of work and productivity levels, and can be a health hazard, leading to eye discomfort, eye strain, and headaches. Bad lighting can also result in shoulder, back, and neck pain.
Dim lighting can also cause depression, as evidenced in a paper published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
Tell us in brief how 75F’s Advance Lighting System works. What has been the response to this offering from the Indian market?
75F is bringing innovative technology to lighting controls and automation. More than simply turning the lights on or off, 75F’s Advanced Lighting solution adds a layer of intelligence to lighting automation and controls in commercial buildings. The system examines weather forecasts and real-time factors such as occupancy, user preferences etc along with your building’s location and orientation to enable efficiency and improve occupant comfort, health and productivity.
The 75F Advanced Lightening solution includes a complete system to add multi-zone control for lighting in fixtures and signage to any facility. Managing your lighting has never been easier for facility managers when using our lighting controls system. The response to this offering from the Indian market has been phenomenal.
Is there any estimate of how big the smart lighting market, so to say, is?
The smart lighting market was valued at $16.2 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $74.30 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 29.3 per cent over the forecast period 2021 – 2026. With the increase in sustainable green building initiatives, owing to environmental concerns and penetration of technology in day-to-day life, there is rise in the growth of adoption rate. Green buildings are buildings which majorly focus on efficiency, effective lifecycle, and performance of the buildings. The rising trend of integrating the technology with the lighting system is gaining momentum.
Do you think that facility managers/property owners are getting increasingly conscious towards softer issues like energy efficiency, worker well-being.etc? Please discuss.
Yes, facility managers and property owners have begun focusing on the occupants as employees become more conscious of their health and the need for sustainability measures. The company’s commitment to sustainability and employee’s comfort has now become a criterion for attracting and retaining millennial talent.
Post 2020, facility managers also need the right strategy to make indoor spaces safer in the event of a pandemic while saving energy under such extreme conditions. With building automation, facility managers can analyse and improve energy efficiency, prevent costly failure or service with pre-emptive monitoring, and maximize investment of time and money across equipment and staff, freeing up people’s time to focus on higher-value priorities.
Right now, facility managers are focusing on ensuring workplaces are safe and secure as offices start to open slowly (post pandemic). Implementing the latest guidelines, having occupancy analytics in place to prevent over-crowding etc., are all very important needs that can be met by smart building automation solutions.
Since 75F’s solution works out-of-the-box and uses wireless controls, we offer fast, cost effective installation as well as easy retrofitting.
Tell us about the challenges associated with retrofitting of existing premises with 75F’s Advance Lighting System.
While the energy saving potential is huge, retrofitting an existing building does have a cost factor attached. Apart from this, facility managers would also have to find solutions that can be easily integrated with existing solutions at their facilities and offer easy retrofit options. But with 75F solutions, this process becomes much easier. Since 75F’s solution works out-of-the-box and uses wireless controls, we offer fast, cost effective installation as well as easy retrofitting.
Would it be possible to fit Advance Lighting System in offices during the construction stage itself, or do you first need to know the exact lighting requirement of a workspace in function?
Yes, 75F’s solution can be installed with ease at greenfield as well as brownfield sites.
Efficient lighting is only a part of the overall services that you offer. Please elaborate.
Apart from efficient lighting, 75F has solutions for one of the most serious problems in commercial buildings; HVAC, because it represents the largest single cost of operating a building.
75F’s Dynamic Airflow Balancing, Dynamic Chilled Water Balancing and Outside Air Optimisation Solutions provide comprehensive integration between the high-side and the low-side ensuring greater comfort and more efficient operations while saving energy and improving air quality.
Depending on thermal, airflow and humidity requirements in each zone, the system proactively controls the chilled water flow rate, ramps up/down the VFDs for fan motors, turns on/off the AHUs and modulates the Smart Dampers which are installed across the site.
During the pandemic, 75F introduced “75F Epidemic Mode”. Tell us more on the product, and the market response in recent months.
75F Epidemic Mode is a new sequence of operations designed to maintain healthy and safe indoor environments for 75F customers in the event of a global pandemic. This application implements federal and scientific guidelines for each individual piece of HVAC equipment in a building, based on its unique capacity and weather conditions. It is also designed for spaces with partial or reduced occupancy.
The system incorporates recommendations including increasing outside air ventilation and flushing indoor air both before and after occupancy hours through two new application profiles, smart enhanced ventilation and smart purge. Both are free of charge and are ready to use out of the box. No programming is required. As recommendations from authorities evolve the application updates over the cloud to implement the most current strategies to minimize viral transmission, all while maximizing energy efficiency and indoor air quality.
75F offers the only system in the market today, implementing these healthy buildings measures in an automated and energy optimized way. Once the pandemic is controlled, facility managers can easily switch back to normal mode of functioning by remotely disabling the “Epidemic Mode”. The market response so far has been great.
Energy efficiency is amongst India’s national goals. How do you see the prospects for 75F’s solutions in the years ahead?
75F’s solution contributes to customers’ social, environmental, and economic success by increasing employee productivity, reducing energy use and other operational expenses, increasing property value, and increasing profits. The value offered to customers across the value chain can be best summed up as improved OE2. With countries across the globe adopting sustainability goals, we certainly see huge opportunity to work closely with not just the government but also companies headquartered here, to achieve their sustainability goals.
The following points explain how 75F can help buildings:
Up to 50 per cent savings on energy: HVAC and Lighting account for 65 per cent of the total energy consumption in commercial buildings. Ttraditional systems can guzzle a lot of energy as they are reactive and depend on dampers. 75F’s solution uses continuous commissioning with the help of sensor data and is predictive and proactive. With the help of IoT and cloud computing, 75F’s solutions can save up to 50 per cent energy used for HVAC and lighting, leading to significant savings on utility bills.
Not only this, our smart sensors also consider other factors like indoor air quality and smart lighting that improves occupant comfort and indirectly leads to an improvement in employee productivity, thus improving the company’s triple bottom line.
Sustainability impact: 75F’s solution deployed across just 16 facilities in 2019 resulted in 4,672,461 kWh of energy saved and forestalled 2,191,418 tonnes of CO2 emission. It also resulted in 7.5 per cent improvement in Occupant Comfort and an RoI ranging from as low as 1.5 to 4 years.
Photographs, showing various smart devices of 75F, are for illustration only.
