The esteemed Professor lets fly at the unrestrained and unnecessary wastage of energy in the UK's multi-story car parks. I was recently collecting my car after dark from a car-park in one of the London suburbs. As I approached on foot, I could see that all the decks were brightly illuminated - yet when I arrived at the deck where my car was, there were three other cars parked there... and no other pedestrians. I did a quick calculation of the lighting energy usage - leaving aside the stairs and lift lighting, my deck alone had 60 x twin 35W fluorescent luminaires burning full-time and there were six decks in all. I could see no evidence of daylight sensors on the perimeter luminaires, to take advantage of natural lighting by day. Adding in, say 10 ballast losses, that is about 243,000kwh per annum for the entire car park - at an average tariff of 10p a unit, electricity costs alone come to more than ￡24,000 p.a. You can do the CO_2 sums yourself.
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