Energy + Environment

The EPA ENERGY STAR commercial building labeling program has released a list of the top 25 cities with the highest number ENERGY STAR buildings in 2008, available here as a PDF document. LA, San Francisco and Houston top the list. You can access all of ENERGY STAR buildings here.

An article I wrote for TED Magazine recently describes the emergence of the NEMA Premium Ballast. Basically, this is a program, with a mark, that identifies the industry’s most efficient fluorescent electronic ballasts available for 4-ft. T8 lamps. It’s a great idea, even if simply to avoid confusion. Everybody calls their electronic ballasts “high efficiency” [...]

Several of New York City’s most recognizable buildings and landmarks have committed to turn off their lights for World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour. Beginning at 8:30 PM on March 28, individuals and organizations around New York City will turn off non-essential lighting on some of the most iconic structures that make up the Manhattan skyline. [...]

I recently wrote an article for TED Magazine about load-shedding ballasts, available online here. A building’s demand for electric power is the sum of the power required to run its electrical equipment in operation at any given time. Demand rises and falls as equipment is turned on and off. Peak demand is the highest level [...]

More than 2,800 people attended ASHRAE‘s 2009 Winter Conference, held Jan. 24-28, Chicago. Also taking place in conjunction with the meeting was the Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating Exposition, which attracted 54,000 registered visitors and exhibitor personnel. A major announcement was ASHRAE’s proposed building energy labeling program, which the Society expects to launch at the 2009 Annual [...]

The Lighting Controls Association authorized ZING Communications, Inc. to conduct a survey of a group of nearly 900 lighting designers, more than 730 electrical engineers and more than 530 lighting/energy consultants subscribing to the LightNOW lighting industry and lightingCONTROL lighting control e-newsletters. The survey, conducted online based on three email invitations distributed in December 2008 [...]

Multilevel switching and personal dimming are often lumped together because the goal is the same–providing users a manual choice of light levels. The 2003 Advanced Lighting Guidelines, published by the New Buildings Institute, says they both save about 30% in energy. There is evidence that bi-level switching saves much more energy than personal dimming control, [...]

It’s a myth that reducing electric energy consumption by installing energy-efficient lighting will have a significant impact on oil consumption. According to the Energy Information Administration, oil accounted for only 1.6% of electric power generation in the United States in 2007. Coal is the largest producer of electric power in the U.S. at 48.5% of [...]

Studies show that commercial buildings produce about half of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change—making these buildings the top emitter of human-caused greenhouse gases, ahead of cars and trucks—while consuming nearly three-fourths of electricity produced at power plants. The Commercial Buildings Initiative (CBI) is a public-private partnership formed to achieve an ambitious goal: By [...]