Energy + Environment

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration has released summary tables providing energy consumption estimates from the 2012 CBECS. The data show that despite a 14% increase in total buildings and a 22% increase in total floorspace since 2003, energy use in the estimated 5.6 million U.S. commercial buildings was up just 7% during [...]

According to BriteSwitch, LLC, two-thirds of the United States is covered by an active commercial lighting rebate program. Key trends include: Incentives for tubular LED (TLED) replacement lamps became added to programs last year. This year, the number of TLED programs increased 28%, but the average rebate per lamp dropped 33% (to $7.95 per lamp) [...]

The California Lighting Technology Center is partnering with Bosch to demonstrate the Bosch Direct Current Building-Scale Microgrid Platform (DCBMP) at a Southern California Honda warehouse facility. Bosch will demonstrate the effectiveness of the DCBMP, a DC building microgrid that integrates advanced technologies to provide reliable power to the connected loads, resilience during grid outages, increased [...]

Good article by Susan Bloom about Power over Ethernet electrical distribution in ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR. It’s well suited to LED lighting. Will this be the future of power distribution? Some contractors may see it more as a threat than an opportunity. Power over Ethernet (PoE) is any of several standardized or ad-hoc systems that pass electrical [...]

Hubbell’s Chris Bailey wrote an interesting blog post about the economics of retrofit versus replacing an existing lighting system. Check it out here.

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 [...]