energy

June 5, 2009

“Green” a school, make a difference

I attended an event this week sponsored by the Grainger (Lake Forest, IL) organization. One of the seminars involved discussion of work done to inject “green” into the facilities operated by the Scottsdale (AZ) Unified School District. The overall effort involved the usual lighting changes, white roofs, better HVAC, recycling, etc. While telling the story, the presenter offered some rather startling general statistics about the savings that can be realized when schools implement “green” policies. According to the presenter, when compared with conventional education facilities, green schools:

use 50% less energy
use 32% less water
produce 74% less solid waste

Note that the terms conventional schools and green schools involve use of some rather broad brushes, but, by any definition, those are some significant numbers. My personal test for these kinds of loose statements is, if we cut the numbers in half, are we still talking about making a significant difference? In this case, the answer is yes. The trick to realizing these kinds of savings is to get enough money into the hands of school districts and then to effectively spend that money.—Gary L. Parr

Filed Under: Green news Tagged With: education, energy, green, sustainability 1 Comment

June 1, 2009

A rare, and enlightening, trip to Walmart

Walmart's new logo to go with its new, fresh store look.

It’s a rare day that I set foot in a Walmart store. Truth be known, when it comes to shopping, I have a disappearing act that makes David Copperfield look clueless, so it’s really not a Walmart thing. Nonetheless, I was in a Walmart the other day that was in the process of a complete overhaul to incorporate their new fresh look—colors, logo, no hyphen in the name.
   It works.
   My wife was with me and we were in the store to get one thing, which was at the back of the facility. While there, we decided to pick up some paper goods, cleaning supplies, etc., which necessitated my walking all of the way to the front to get a cart, and say hi to the greeter person for the second time (If you’re a Jeff Dunham fan, a joke comes to mind at this point). While strolling through the store, I started to realize that the lighting was very pleasing, more so than any store I’d been in recently. It created a crisp, clean look and felt good, i.e., I didn’t mind being in the store.
   I looked up. Much to my surprise, I saw rows and rows of skylights. Yes, other than around the edges and a few places where artificial lighting made sense, the entire store was lit by daylight. Fluorescent lights were up there, too, but those irritating tubes were turned off, for the most part. I stopped and just took in the lighting and the very pleasing effect it was having on the store environment. I saw first hand why studies keep telling us that daylighting in retail, healthcare, and education facilities has a positive overall effect. It really does work. A tip of the cap to Walmart’s store designers.
   However, as nice as the experience was, I’ll still avoid shopping like the plague.—Gary L. Parr

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: daylighting, energy, green, lighting, skylights Leave a Comment

May 15, 2009

Parterre participates in green effort

These six wind turbines combine with solar panels to help power Parterre's headquarters.

It’s always good to hear that companies who tout the “greenness” of their products practice what they preach. Parterre Flooring Systems, Brooklyn, NY, is one of those companies. The flooring manufacturer makes its headquarters in the, now converted, Brooklyn Navy Yard. The recent $250-million Navy Yard renovation project has the facility on track to receive LEED Gold certification.
   The focal point of the project is the first use of roof-mounted wind turbines in Brooklyn. The six wind turbines, along with numerous rooftop solar panels, provide electricity for the building’s lobby and other common areas. Other green aspects of the renovation include reflective roofing and pavement to reduce surface temperatures, recycled rain water for toilet flushing, recycled building materials, high-efficiency lighting fixtures, and natural ventilation.
   “At Parterre, we take environmental responsibility seriously,” said president T. Fred Roche. “So, of course, we are extremely enthusiastic about the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s offices receiving power from the rooftop wind turbines and solar panels and being a part of this development’s impressive sustainability initiatives.”
   The city also announced plans for other projects at the Navy Yard, including the Duggal Greenhouse, which involves turning a one-story 30,000-sq.-ft. building into “a 60,000-sq.-ft. LEED Platinum facility that will be used to manufacture eco-friendly products and will become a laboratory for new sustainable products.” It is expected that the facility will also create 1,700 jobs.—Gary L. Parr

Filed Under: Green news Tagged With: energy, green, LEED, solar energy, sustainability, wind turbines Leave a Comment

May 13, 2009

Merck goes solar

The Merck photovoltaic system consists of 7,000 moving solar panels that generate 2.5 million kWhr/yr.

Solar energy generation is gaining a significant foothold in the commercial market as the technology gets more approachable and as companies work to cut their energy costs and reduce their ecologic impact. One of the newest and largest solar efforts was recently put into service at the world headquarters of Merck & Co. Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ. The ground-mounted solar tracking system consists of nearly 7,000 sun-tracking solar panels that generate 2.5 million kWhr/year of energy.
   “Supporting the use of clean, reliable solar power is good for our environment and makes good business sense,” said Merck chairman, president, and CEO Richard T. Clark. “This project is consistent with Merck’s ‘going green’ efforts to reduce our environmental footprint and to promote greater efficiency in our use of natural resources.”
   As a member of the U.S. EPA (Washington) Climate Leaders, Merck is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 12% by 2012 from a 2004 baseline. A solar project of the size at Whitehouse Station will avoid the annual emission of more than 1,200 tons of CO₂ emissions annually, which is about the same as taking 200 cars off the road per year.
   The solar array is spread out over 7.5 acres and the panels move to track the sun’s movement throughout the day. Power generated from the system will produce about 7.5% of the Merck site’s electrical needs.
   Through novel arrangements that are making the installation of large solar systems more feasible, the Merck system is owned and operated by Dome-Tech Inc., Edison, NJ, a subsidiary of Carrier Corp., Farmington, CT, a unit of United Technologies Corp., Hartford, CT, which will supply solar power to Merck under a 20-yr. purchase agreement. The project was made possible through financial initiatives offered under the New Jersey Clean Energy Program, tax credits issued by the U.S. Federal Solar and Renewables Tax Credit Program, and support from the Readington Township (NJ) Planning Board.
   Merck received the Green & Sustainable Energy award from the Hunterdon County (NJ) Planning Board in recognition of the solar project. Merck also recently was recognized by the U.S. EPA, Washington, with a 2009 Energy Star Sustained Excellence Award for continued efforts to protect the environment. Merck is also a member of the EPA’s Climate RESOLVE program.
   “I applaud Merck’s responsible environmental efforts,” said New Jersey governor Jon S. Corzine. “New Jersey has one of the strongest solar programs in the nation and this private sector project is a fine complement to our own energy master plan initiatives that are securing and strengthening the Garden State’s energy future.”—Gary L. Parr

Filed Under: Green news Tagged With: energy, green, Photovoltaics, solar energy, solar panels Leave a Comment

May 12, 2009

Cree leads LED lamp movement

Cree's LR6 LED prototype lamp.

This blog entry continues my series of answers to the eternal question: What did you see that was new at (insert trade show name)? The trade show of the moment is Lightfair 2009, held May 5 to 7 in the Big Apple. The subject of this posting is LED “lamp” units.
One of the prevailing product-introduction categories at the show was LED-based replacements for conventional lamps. While there has been much talk and excitement in recent years about LED technology, I have always believed that talk about the technology itself was irrelevant to the specifier/end user and really only of interest to research scientists and manufacturers. It has been my opinion that the only thing that will matter to the specifier/end user is what form factors the manufacturers will be able to deliver to the marketplace and how well will they be able to produce “lamps” that fit into existing fixtures. Based on what I saw at Lightfair, it looks like the manufacturers are finding great success delivering LED-based lamps that will function in existing fixtures. Heat dissipation is clearly still a major issue, but design innovation seems to be overcoming that hurdle and I heard one mention of progress developing heat-resistant LED packages.
One standout example of an LED lamp that will function in existing fixtures was the prototype LR6 LED recessed downlight, shown by Cree LED Lighting Solutions Inc., Durham, NC. The prototype delivers 665 lumens while consuming 6.5 W of electricity with an efficacy of 102 lumens per watt and a power factor greater than 0.9. The lamp features the company’s TrueWhite technology, which produces a 92 CRI (color-rendering index) and a 3500 K color temperature. The memorable part of the demonstration I saw was the lamp’s ability to render true reds, an important feature for the retail industry.—Gary L. Parr

Filed Under: Manufacturers Tagged With: energy, LED, lighting 1 Comment

May 8, 2009

Big energy payoff for NY Times building

The New York Times building was designed to maximize light usage and be as energy efficient as possible.

In the October 2008 premier issue of Building Power, our every-issue supplement that addresses energy issues in commercial buildings, we highlighted the, now famous, New York Times building (read the article here) in New York City. The systems designed into the building to save energy and improve occupant comfort and indoor-air quality are quite impressive, on paper. As with any energy-saving system, what’s on paper and reality can be vastly different. That’s the case with the New York Times building. The difference is huge and it’s very positive.
   According to information provided by Lutron Electronics Co. Inc., Coopersburg, PA, this week at Lightfair 2009 in New York, the lighting-control systems installed in the building are “achieving a ‘stunning’ 70 percent energy savings compared to the ambitious energy-efficiency benchmark the building was designed to meet.” The lighting-control systems are Lutron’s EcoSystem and Quantum products.
   “We designed our building to use 1.28 watts per square foot of lighting power. With Quantum, it’s using only 0.38 [W/sq. ft.]—that’s 70% less,” said Glenn Hughes, director of construction for the New York Times Co.
   The lighting control strategies employed in the building include:

level tuning (setting the appropriate target light level for each space)
daylight harvesting (automatically dimming electric lights when enough daylight is present)
occupancy sensing (turning lights off when space is vacant).

It is estimated that the reduced lighting energy usage will result in an annual savings of about $315,000. In addition, about 1,250 metric tons of CO₂ emissions will be prevented each year.—Gary L. Parr

Filed Under: Green news Tagged With: energy, green, lighting, sustainability Leave a Comment