For an upcoming article for ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR, I recently had the opportunity to interview Gabe Arnold, PE, Senior Systems Engineer for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The topic: a new ACEEE conference paper evaluating the efficacy and energy consumption of upper-room GUV systems. Transcript follows.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) released it’s annual State of Retail & the Consumer forecast. Here are the highlights: The retail sector is expected to grow 4-6% in 2023, to $5.13-$5.23 Trillion. 2022 saw 7% growth over 2021. 2023’s forecast is higher than pre-pandemic growth of 3.6% E-commerce sales expected to rise 10-12% in 2023, [...]

  The commercial real estate market is adopting smart building technologies and in many cases, wants third-party certifications to prove that they have done it well. Below are short summaries of seven smart building certification programs that are gaining traction. Certification name:               Living Building Challenge (LBC) Run by:                                  International Living Future Institute Description:  All [...]

  There is a growing list of sustainability labels and certifications to be aware of. Some are for products, some for buildings, and some for business operations. Here are three to be aware of: Declare. Manufacturers voluntarily disclose product information on easy-to-read Declare labels. These labels report all product ingredients and use a simple color [...]

In August, I wrote about Zhaga Book 25, “NFC Readers with Bluetooth Interface for In-Field Programming.”  Since then, more manufacturers have been introducing drivers with Near Field Communication (NFC) that allows a mobile device to field-program the drivers. One example is LEDVANCE’s new line of TapTronic Field-programmable NFC LED Drivers.  They are Field-programmable via LEDVANCE’s [...]

The recently released 2018 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that the total floorspace in commercial buildings had increased but energy consumption had not, compared with the last survey analyzing commercial building energy use, in 2012. This difference indicates that the consumption per square foot (energy intensity) had decreased, [...]

Artificial Sky offers a product, Virtual Sky, that utilizes LED luminaires which appear to be a blue sky with passing clouds overhead, birds flying, and sunrise and sunset effects. Virtual Sky can remotely change from overhead dimmable white task lighting to an ultra-realistic blue sky with moving clouds that mimic daylight entirely.

A new model code from the New Buildings Institute (NBI) is designed to help cities tackle emissions, specifically from the large stock of existing buildings. The model code Existing Building Decarbonization Code was published on Sept. 19, 2022. It is considered an overlay to the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and an addition to the Building Decarbonization Code published by NBI in 2020.

China’s trade growth rebounded in May after COVID restrictions that shut down Shanghai and other industrial centers began to ease.