Lighting accounts for approx. 19% (~3000 TWh) of the global electric energy consumption. Without essential changes in policies, markets and practical implementations it is expected to continuously grow despite significant and rapid technical improvements like solid-state lighting, new façade and light management techniques.

With a small volume of new buildings, major lighting energy savings can only be realized by retrofitting the existing building stock. Many countries face the same situation: About 75% of the lighting installations are considered to be out of date (older than 25 years). Compared to existing installations, the majority of new solutions allow a significant increase in efficiency – easily by a factor of three or more – going along with highly interesting payback times. However, lighting refurbishments are still lagging behind compared to what is economically and technically possible and feasible.

With the activities in Task 50, we aim at improving the lighting refurbishment process in non-residential buildings in order to unleash energy saving potentials while at the same time improving lighting quality.