[The following is directly from an e-mailed announcement from the Energy Center of Wisconsin]



Are you interested in LED lighting technologies, but faced with a barrage of claims and confused about how to get started? You are not alone. In a brief introduction of LED technology and products the incredible amount of LED information available will be condensed into management takeaways during this webinar. We will identify where LED technologies are most likely to work well in large…

What’s in a name?  Well, in "outdoor wall-mounted area luminaires", there are a lot of words.  But that’s the name that BPA’s E3T LED Technical Advisory Group (TAG) came up with in their working group that focused on this application for LED lighting, and this posting is based on their meeting today (how’s that for hot off the press?).  There were 28 people on the call, including an impressive array of senior staff from across the region, California, Colorado, and the east…

Our (E3T’s) latest Technology Advisory Group will be starting up in a couple of weeks and focus on LED lighting applications.  One of these is LED street lights, which recently got a lot of press in due to the testing of street lights in Seattle.  Glare can be an issue, and some designers are looking at tilting the streetlight heads slightly away from the oncoming traffic or dropping the lights to the level of jersey barriers where there are not sidewalks, so something in the street is…

One of the general principles of conservation and efficiency (they're similar but different, remembers?) is to not heat, cool, or light buildings unnecessarily.  This is a function of controls and operation rather than the efficiency or the heating, cooling, and lighting equipment itself.  It started as simple as turning off the lights when you leave a room (remember how your dad harped on that?  "Money doesn't grow on trees you know!") but has since evolved into "adaptive lighting" and…

As a mechanical engineer, I have a pretty high tolerance for complexity.  However, as I age and as I see the challenge many programs have with getting great technologies implemented, I increasingly see the benefit of simplicity. 

You may have heard how some of your appliances may actually use more power each day when "off" than when they're on, just from running a clock you don't really need or making the appliance come to life in 1.5 seconds rather 3.8 seconds.  These are known as…

In the industrial sector, Frito Lay coined the phrase BHAG (pronounced “bee-hag) to describe Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals.  It seems that UC San Diego has a BHAG: Cut campus energy costs by $6 million per year and achieve “climate neutrality” by 2025.  Other UC campuses are coming up with similar goals, and I think that's terrific, pioneering and demonstrating the technologies and strategies the whole country will need.   

Their latest project involved bi-level lighting in parking…

The bar has been raised again for motor efficiency. Several motors are now available that can achieve efficiency levels significantly higher than the "Premium Efficiency" standard recently mandated for general purpose motors imported or sold in the United States (effective December 2010).

In 2008, the International…

When trying to advance new lighting technologies acceptance, and gain the associated energy savings, who should we target?

One argument might be residential, becasue everyone lives somewhere, and if they use a technology at home with satisfaction, they may be more willing to try it in the workplace. Another might be just the commercial market because they use so much more of it.

The recently released…

So, there was enough public outcry for Congress to slip non-enforcement of the new ban on manufacture of 100- watt incandescent lamps until next fall, into the recently passed Federal spending bill, and I guess that means those who see the law as a personal rights issue will be happy for awhile.

What they don’t seem to realize is that the law was on the books for years and manufactures have already adjusted their production to accommodate it and would be very unlikely to re-tool in…

The 12-foot diameter, 12,000-pound ball that has dropped above Times Square every New Year's even since 1907 symbolizes the holiday as well as anything.  It started using LEDs (32,256 of them actually) in 2008 to symbolize the 2007 federal law mandating more efficient lighting. Last week, Congress voted to defund the implementation of the efficiency rules until next October, symbolizing...well, I won't get into what that symbolizes.    

Rob Penney, WSU Energy…

NEEA recently sponsored a market assessment of controls designed for use with roadway lighting.  To me, this is an extension of developments in adaptive lighting, for which Michael Siminovitch at CLTC has played a leadership role, although municipalities can a bit more cautious modifying roadway lighting as opposed to…

Stan Walercyck has an advertising brochure out that includes several statements that resonate with me. He granted me permission to quote them here, and maybe you agree with them too. They help clarify why the work we do to investigate and report on emerging technologies is important.

"MORE HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST 3 YEARS THAN THE PREVIOUS 20 AND THE PACE IS INCREASING"





"ALTHOUGH MANY PEOPLE USED TO BE ABLE TO STAY ON TOP OF LIGHTING AND CONTROLS DEVELOPMENTS, WHILE…

As an alternative to traditional holiday lighting displays that disposed of the lighting strings used annually, Chicago’s loop now has a year-round lighting display that is energy-efficient, vandal resistant, and musical to boot. It takes advantage of two newer technologies, LED lighting and wireless controls, to make a highly adaptable display that runs along seven blocks on State Street. The music is programmed with the lighting and various events or seasonal themes can be created, all…

The U.S. Department of Energy's Commercial Building Energy Alliances (CBEA) is collecting a list of new products that are available but underused, and hoping that by giving them extra exposure commercial business might consider utilizing them in their facilities. The current list contains 228 products in 6 technology groups:

• Envelope
• Renewables, Conversion, and Storage
• Lighting
• HVAC
• Controls
• Other

Visit the site at…

The baby-boomer generation by its sheer size continues to impact many aspects of daily living and the products and practices meant to serve them.

While energy-efficiency measures keep aiming to lower lighting power density, and often lighting levels, the boomers are reaching the age where the extra light they need to see well is significant compared even to when they were 40, and with senior living facilities of all types increasing, how to light them well can be a challenge. The…

Imagine waking up in a small hut, high up in the Himalayas overlooking the lush green hills, the smell of cool, fresh air engulfing your lungs. Each day, you must make a 3-4 hour trek outside of your village to school. After your daily classes, it's time to make the return trip, an exhausting 3-4 hour uphill climb. Upon returning home, it's time to finish your daily…

On March 6-8 in Seattle, NEEA’s Emerging Technology group will measure the performance of LED streetlights in wet and dry pavement conditions with some partners, including City of Seattle/SCL, Continuum Industries, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, and Nancy Claton’s firm.

This is pretty exciting.  Theory is one thing, but it’s another to get behind the wheel and actually see how well things work in the real world—which is pretty important to void putting the public at…

Use of LED lighting seems to continue growing steadily, with a broader array of applications that may be cost-effective, more retrofits to avoid fixture replacement, and more products available.  From the the start of the LED explosion, there have been some products and applications that weren't quite ready for prime time. BPA’s E3T focus for the first half of 2012 will be lighting, highlighting LED technologies, with a new Technical Advisory Group launching in January to help identify what…

Air tightness is a gap in existing construction process identified as quite important by Building America.  Many little leaks may be pretty inaccessible but add up to a significant heat loss and gain.  At the UC Davis Forum today, Mark Madera, the head of their Western Cooling Efficiency Center talked about sealing buildings using a new version of the duct sealing aerosol process that he helped develop and commercialize.  The idea is to spray a home after rough-in, or possibly to spray an…

One of the themes among the presentations at the Retrofitting Corporate Campuses forum at UC Davis yesterday was cooling data centers with more naturally. 

The most compelling presentation I saw was by an unlikely presenter: David Gallaher, a geoscientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.  He  lives off grid at over 9,000 feet and is very pragmatic.  His data center was using more energy in the winter when it's quite cold out because 10 kW of infrared heat was used for…