Geisel Library, UC San Diego; Photo: Erik Jepsen, UC San Diego Publications

UC San Diego is completing the second phase of its ambitious lighting retrofit project, upgrading the lights in its parking garages and lots to cut electricity consumption by 420,000 kilowatt hours every year. “At our average electricity rate of 8 cents per kilowatt-hour that equates to $33,600 saved per year,” says Anna Levitt, UC San Diego’s assistant campus energy manager. The lighting retrofits are part of a larger plan to save the campus over $6 million a year in total energy costs, and help reduce energy use to year-2000 levels by 2014, a systemwide goal for UC.

“CLTC was a definite influence,” says Levitt of UCSD’s decision to install bi-level controls, already installed in 324 stairwell fixtures, in 18 campus buildings. Now UCSD's new exterior lighting will have integrated occupancy sensors. “In three parking lots, we're trying out bi-level LED fixtures that go to 40% of full output when the lot is unoccupied,” says Levitt, describing the BetaLED LEDway street light. “In the rest of the lots across campus, we are installing [Precision Paragon ESTE] T5HO fluorescent fixtures that have two 4-foot lamps.” The fluorescents use 54 watts, versus the 220 watts used by the old low-pressure sodium (LPS) sources, and when the spaces are unoccupied, one of the lamps in each fixture turns off, cutting energy use further.

UCSD also has plans to retrofit its Recreation, IntraMural Athletics Complex (RIMAC), a project that should save more than $50,000 each year and bring the campus another step closer to its goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2025. Besides cutting costs, the retrofits should position UCSD in alignment with the next generation of California’s Title 24 regulations, which will likely include requirements for multi-level lighting capabilities.

See Anna Levitt give a video tour of UCSD's retrofits.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012
6:30 PM (PROGRAM STARTS AT 7 PM)
METRO LIGHTING AND CRAFTS, BERKELEY, CA
$10 - $25

The San Francisco section of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America hosts this special presentation on the art and science of daylighting, featuring CLTC Co-director and UC Davis Professor of Design Konstantinos Papamichael. 

Papamichael has a Ph.D. in Architecture from UC Berkeley and 30 years of professional experience developing energy-efficient lighting strategies and technologies, including advanced controls for daylight harvesting and software tools that allow architects and facility managers to measure the environmental impact of their building designs and operations more easily, to improve both lighting quality and energy savings.

Register for this event.

More and more cities are swapping high-pressure sodium (HPS) street lights for energy-efficient LED or induction lights, but they could boost their energy savings an additional 40–50% by installing control systems too. Advanced controls enable lights to operate in an energy-saving mode during long periods of inactivity then automatically brighten when sensors register activity.

CLTC Director Michael Siminovitch has long been calling for new outdoor lighting investments to include advanced controls (or to at least be made controls-ready). It’s a position Siminovitch first laid out in his July 2010 article for LD+A magazine, "Taking the Long View on LED Street Lighting," and one he has since explored further in a white paper.

In its 2011 study, "Technology and Market Assessment of Networked Outdoor Lighting Controls," The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) cited Siminovitch and CLTC for “leading the charge” in this effort to maximize energy savings. That same report by the forward-thinking nonprofit concluded: “At a minimum, all street and parking lighting investments ought to include controls-ready, dimmable lighting products if not advanced networked controls themselves.” We couldn't agree more.  

Read Professor Siminovitch’s white paper.

Download the NEEA report.

Advanced lighting controls can achieve impressive energy savings for commercial buildings (occupancy sensors alone can cut consumption by as much as 40%), but the technology has to be properly installed and commissioned in order to perform. That’s why the California Advanced Lighting Controls Training Program (CALCTP) was created. Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, CALCTP has successfully trained and certified 1,324 electricians, placing 807 of them in jobs through the Department of Labor.

At the heart of CALCTP’s innovative, flexible 50-hour curriculum is an intensive, hands-on lab course that allows students to practice their skills as they learn. "It would have taken me six years in the field to cover what I learned," says one electrician. CLTC maintains the program’s curriculum to keep it current with the latest developments in lighting technology. 

CALCTP has also certified 51 contractors, provided its Systems Course to 63 mid-level managers, and instructed 253 senior-level managers in its Business Development Course, giving management the tools to actively sell retrofitting opportunities to companies, which in turn creates more job opportunities for CALCTP-certified contractors and electricians while boosting energy savings statewide.

Visit the CALCTP website.

Learn more about CALCTP's promising practices for job placement.

The University of California has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2014 (per UC Presidential Policy) and reaching 1990 levels by 2020 (per California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32). With these goals and the ultimate goal of climate neutrality in mind, the University of California Office of the President recently released its “Prospectus for a Sustainable Future.”

The report, produced by the UC Climate Solutions Steering Group, urges intensifying and expanding proven energy efficiency strategies and investing more boldly in renewable energy. The Group cites UC Davis’s Smart Lighting Initiative and UC Irvine’s Smart Labs Initiative (which included lighting measures) as recommended strategies worth repeating systemwide, stating that measures like these—that reduce energy consumption, and consequent carbon emissions, by 50% or more—provide the most immediate, cost-feasible means for reducing UC’s carbon footprint.

The report also urgently recommends initiating a systemwide, industrial-scale renewable energy program, citing biomethane. It stresses bolder, more comprehensive measures are needed to meet the 2020 goal and avoid $126 million – $475 million in costs associated with forthcoming state regulations.

See the full report.

Learn more about UC Davis's Smart Lighting Initiative.

Save the Date!
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2012
5:30 – 7 PM
UC DAVIS CONFERENCE CENTER BALLROOM
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The California Lighting Technology Center is pleased to welcome award-winning lighting design experts James Benya and Deborah Burnett to the UC Davis campus for “A Perfect Circadian Day.” Their fast-paced multimedia presentation will examine the health effects of daylight and darkness, and the implications for architectural and interior design. Attendees will gain the tools and understanding to create a circadian-friendly indoor environment, one which promotes health, healing and cognitive function while enhancing energy efficiency.

Part of the Don Aumann Memorial Lecture Series in Lighting Efficiency, this event honors the memory of former CLTC Program Director Don Aumann and reflects the shared mission of UC Davis and the California Lighting Technology Center: sustainability through education.

RSVP for the event.

Learn more about the speakers and their work.

Products of any kind live or die on store shelves based on how well they meet American consumers’ expectations for quality and affordability. This is true for energy-efficient LED lighting, too. Products that yield energy savings but fail to deliver good color quality, longevity, and dimmability will continue to gather dust on warehouse shelves; unfortunately, they may also be gathering a bad reputation for the energy saving label. This is why UC Davis lighting design professors are advocating for a new approach to lighting American homes, one that gives more priority to consumer satisfaction and somewhat less to energy efficiency.
 
Professor Michael Siminovitch explains, “We are already well on our way to repeating many of the same mistakes made in past years with compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) marketing, and unless public opinion is quickly transformed with LEDs, it’s only going to get worse.” He is among those in the lighting community who would like to see a shift from an efficiency-based specification to a “quality-based specification” aimed at meeting, or exceeding, “the highest level of consumer expectation for lighting quality.” The goal is to earn consumer confidence in products marketed as energy efficient, so that when the best of both worlds (efficiency and quality) finally arrives on store shelves, consumers will be able to recognize a truly good thing when they see it.

Download the white paper "Relighting American Homes with LEDs" by Michael Siminovitch and Konstantinos Papamichael

Most commercial and industrial buildings have exterior wall-mounted fixtures used for common area and security lighting.  These fixtures commonly operate over extended hours and employ sources which have poor color rendering and little or no controllability. Additionally, typical optical systems simply spray the light sideways and upwards, creating more light pollution and glare than effective illumination.

CLTC, UC Davis Facilities Management, and industry partners Philips Day-Brite and Lumewave have collaborated to develop and test an LED wall pack lighting solution that increases safety and optimizes energy savings through predictive occupancy. The luminaire offers greater efficiency, good color rendering, and improved cutoff. Each wallpack is equipped with a wireless controller and an occupancy sensor, allowing the installation to operate as a system that can determine the path of travel of an occupant. This is combined with dimmable LED lighting to reduce total energy use and increase safety.

Read more on networked exterior lighting controls.