Green construction codes and standards are beginning to emerge on the national code stage. The standards go beyond energy standards such as 90.1 and the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) to cover additional areas such as site sustainability, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality and materials and resources.
This is the subject of a new whitepaper I [...]
The United States suffered its worst recession in 70 years following the collapse of the housing market. The good news is some economists believe the economy began to recover in Q309 after hitting bottom in the second quarter. The residential construction market is expected to recover, and the Federal stimulus has generated some growth in [...]
Daylighting is going mainstream and daylight harvesting, the energy-saving lighting control strategy that actually makes daylighting “sustainable,” is beginning to catch up. All automatic daylight harvesting control systems need a device that can measure light levels and signal a controller to dim or switch the lights in response to daylight contribution. This device is called [...]
Control wiring provides a path for command and status communication between control devices in a lighting and control system and, in many cases, power to the devices as well. Wiring is interrelated with overall lighting control system considerations—such as selection of control system and components, layout and installation practices—and is therefore an important consideration when [...]
In July 2009, the Department of Energy issued new energy efficiency standards for commercial general-service fluorescent lamps and incandescent (and halogen) reflector lamps. The new rules take effect July 14, 2012 and will basically eliminate products with the lowest efficiency and lowest cost.
In the case of fluorescent lamps, equivalent-performance products are readily available, such [...]
The Lighting Controls Association recently published a whitepaper I wrote about a new California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) study on bilevel occupancy sensors.
CLTC studied control strategies in eight private offices and found that combining occupancy sensing and bilevel switching produced the highest energy savings—about 50% more than using an occupancy sensor alone. These are dramatic [...]
Earlier this month, I posted a new whitepaper at the Lighting Control Association website that talks about the findings of a new study about combining occupancy sensing and bilevel switching.
According to the Advanced Lighting Guidelines, occupancy sensors in private offices can produce up to 45% energy savings.
A 2002 study by ADM Associates found that bilevel [...]
The New Buildings Institute has announced that they will be previewing the latest version of the Advanced Lighting Guidelines at Lightfair International May 5-7 in New York City. To see the 2003 ALG, click here.
The new edition will be published online and features contributions from many of the country’s top experts in lighting design. I [...]
In this post, I noted that ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004 has been established by the Department of Energy as the commercial building reference standard for state building energy codes starting in 2010. Meanwhile, the stimulus package appears to be encouraging adoption of the latest version, which is 90.1-2007, as noted in this post.
I promised a more [...]
In many schools, lighting eats up 30-40% of utility costs. As energy codes become more restrictive, can lighting satisfy the demands of the modern classroom, with horizontal and vertical workplanes, computers and A/V equipment? To test one approach, the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) engaged [...]
