Many restaurants think they have lighting control covered after they invest in an expensive dimmer panel/lighting control system. The primary function of such systems is to control lights to create a certain “mood” in the restaurant based on time of day, and quite a bit of programming and automation is put in place to serve that function. However, we’ve found numerous examples of control systems that are not optimized for energy savings; either because they weren’t programmed properly, or because they have been overridden, intentionally or not, by local operators.

One of our customers assumed that because his dimmer panel did such a good job of automatically setting the mood throughout the day, of course it must be intelligent enough to lower the lights overnight! Unfortunately, SiteSage data revealed that the brightest light setting (which was programmed to help with post-dinner clean-up) actually stayed on until 8:00 the next morning. Further investigation revealed that a “set-back” setting had never been programmed, so the restaurant couldn’t engage this setting even if they wanted to.

Do you know what your lights are doing when you aren’t there? And when is automated equipment control cost-effective? Watch this webinar to learn more: