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Retail Lighting in the UK
Retail Lighting in the UK, as with other lighting, can make a major contribution to the design of a retail space. The lighting plays a role in drawing customers into the shop as well as making the space a lively and vibrant area when inside. Often the design of the space can be knocked back if the lighting design is an effective one.
Energy efficiency is also a major consideration in the design of the lighting. Metal halide and compact fluorescent both rate highly in green terms, and are often used with the exclusion of low voltage. Where low voltage has played a major part over the past 20 years, metal halide light sources are now becoming smaller and cheaper to provide better solutions for retail lighting. With the greater efficiency, metal halide will consume less power and produce less heat, requiring less cooling of the interior. Metal halide and fluorescent lamps also last much longer than their low voltage counterparts keeping maintenance costs down.
Colour also plays a significant role in the lighting of retail spaces, the retail designer has enough flexibility within the range of both metal halide and fluorescent to be able to choose many different lamp temperatures. The colour rendering of both metal halide and fluorescent is also very good and compares favourably with low voltage.
Higher end retail outlets in the UK tend to go for more accent lighting to create more drama, where as intermediate end will often look for a more even light level within a retail environment. Accent lighting can reduce the overall power consumption, the eye notices the difference between light and dark better, so a well designed space can have a lower light level. Also reducing the ambient light will mean that less accent lighting is required. Fluorescent is often used for ambient lighting, with a diffuser, and metal halide or low voltage used for accent.
Daylight at midday has colour wavelengths in equal amounts, so we consider this the best light to view colour with. The ability for a lamp to display colour accurately is described a good colour rendering and is measured in RA as a percentage of 100. Generally speaking the cooler coloured lamps 4000 degrees kelvin have better colour rendering properties, although we generally use warming lamps for retail lighting, 3000 degrees kelvin
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