Energy + Environment

I wrote this article for the July issue of tED Magazine. Reprinted with permission. LED performance continues to increase, making it increasingly competitive with traditional lighting, while costs continue to fall, making it increasingly attractive for purchase. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), between 2005 and 2013, average efficacy of cool-white LED packages [...]

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Presidential Challenge for Advanced Outdoor Lighting recently amped up its goal of transforming America’s streetlights to higher efficiency. As part of the DOE’s Better Buildings Initiative program, the Presidential Challenge aims to work with municipalities to upgrade 1.5 million U.S. streetlights to LED over the next two years. Click [...]

2015 has brought a significant drop in rebates for LED replacement lamps such as PARs, MRs, A-lamps and decorative lamps, according to Briteswitch. While the average rebate for replacement LED lamps was $11.12 in 2014, this year it dropped to $7.51, a 32% decline. This change comes as rebate programs try to adjust their offerings [...]

The North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center has relaunched the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE). Funded by the Department of Energy, DSIRE offers a comprehensive source of information related to policies and incentives that support the nation’s use of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. The new and improved website offers [...]

Introduced in 2009, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2030 Commitment Program, a voluntary initiative for architecture firms and other entities in the built environment to commit their practice to advancing the AIA’s goal of carbon neutral buildings by the year 2030, has produced a report assessing their work. “There is some very encouraging data [...]

The notion that energy efficiency and lighting quality are at odds is a fallacy, says Kevin Willmorth in this article for ARCHITECTURAL SSL. Read it here.

Online attendee registration is now open for Greenbuild, the sustainability conference, which will be held in New Orleans (great city) this year. Click here to register.

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has launched a new collaborative initiative, the Lighting Energy Alliance, to increase the benefits of lighting while reducing its environmental and monetary costs. Member utilities and efficiency agencies will direct the work of the Alliance in order to produce the information needed to effectively reduce lighting [...]

The California Lighting Technology Center has published a guide to lighting retrofits for California schools, available free here. Developed in partnership with utilities and lighting industry leaders, it covers proven lighting and daylighting strategies that consistently provide excellent long-term energy savings and lighting quality improvements on K–12 and community college campuses. The interactive electronic document [...]