Energy management for light system in the convenience stores: Case study of gas station in Thailand

In Thailand, energy conservation has become one of the most challenging issues which are set as the nation agenda. Base on the development of electrical equipment especially, light bulbs, many technologies are proposed to evaluate the economics performance for convenience stores. In this paper, the energy management of lighting system in convenience stores for gas station is studied to enhance the energy efficiency in term of economic with the acceptable standard and regulation of Thailand. According to the existing system, T8 and standard ballast was typically installed in convenience stores for gas station that may be insufficient under energy crisis. The proposed energy management program will be discussed between the typical lighting system controlled by dimmer device and T5 with electronic ballast, which is a recommended technology from Ministry of Energy. In addition, the experimental results from selected gas station are presented in term of the luminance standard and energy conservation of proposed technologies. In the part of technical comparison, the T8 with dimmer device can decrease 38.67% of energy consumption which is better than T5 with electronic ballast. Furthermore, with additional 10% light dimming after midnight, the energy consumption is more reduced almost 10% without customer dissatisfaction. Not only the technical consideration but also the financial analysis is also evaluated in order to understand feasibility in practical implementation.