Product or Innovation - Air Quality
This award recognises products or innovations that make a significant contribution to the wellbeing element of building performance, such as solutions in the fields of lighting, acoustics, air quality, renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Winner: Philips UV-C Upper Air Disinfection Luminaires – Signify
Judges called Signify’s Philips UV-C upper-air disinfection luminaires ‘a thoroughly thought through and researched product that addresses the current need to disinfect indoor air.’
They commended the company’s novel application of existing technologies to address the threat from COVID-19 and other airborne pathogens and the comprehensive information it provided on the operation and maintenance of the product.
The judges praised the level of research and development documented in the application, the use of independent studies to verify safety and efficacy, and the provision of information on actual in-use performance.
Signify’s upper-air UV-C luminaires can be ceiling- or wall-mounted, and installed with basic on/off control or linked to time clocks.
In a laboratory test conducted by Innovative Bioanalysis, they inactivated 99.99% of Sars-Cov-2 – the virus responsible for the COVID-19 disease – in the air of a room within 10 minutes; at 20 minutes, the virus was below detectable levels. In addition, all bacteria and pathogens tested to date have responded to UV-C.
Signify’s upper-air luminaires can provide the equivalent of up to 30 air changes per hour. To achieve equivalent air changes using a traditional HVAC strategy would typically cost 10 times more, while HEPA filters can be up to three times more expensive than UV-C equivalents.
As the Sygnify units have no moving or active parts, ongoing maintenance is fairly basic, with an annual lamp change (9,000hrs) the only planned activity.
Signify is accredited with many sustainability bodies – including the Prince of Wales’ Terra Carta, CDP, EcoVadis and is on the Dow Jones Sustainability index. It also claims to use 100% renewable energy to power its operations and says it is 100% carbon neutral in all its operations (as of 2020).