Michael Siminovitch, UC Davis professor of design and director of UC Davis’s California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC), has been selected by UC President Janet Napolitano to serve on the newly formed University of California Global Climate Leadership Council, which includes UC officials, students and outside experts. President Napolitano formed the council to guide UC efforts aimed at achieving carbon neutrality by 2025.
CLTC recently released “Lighting Retrofit Strategies for California Schools,” a new guide designed to help K–12 schools and community colleges maximize the long-term benefits of energy-efficient lighting upgrades. The guide provides expert advice on best practices for planning projects, incorporating daylighting and lighting controls, and selecting solutions for applications commonly found at school sites. The interactive electronic guide also includes Web links to case studies, product specification sheets, free or low-cost support programs, and other online resources.
The City of Berkeley recently approved a project to upgrade approximately 8,000 streetlights to LED technology by the end of 2014. The project is expected to cut the city’s CO2 emissions from streetlight energy consumption by 50% and reduce Berkeley’s total emissions by about 7%.
“We would like to thank the Bay Area Climate Collaborative, California Energy Commission and the California Lighting Technology Center for their support in getting this project to design and construction,” said Phillip Harrington, Berkeley’s Deputy Public Works Director.
A new award has been created for undergraduate students who demonstrate exceptional interest and aptitude in lighting and energy efficiency. The Susan Woodward Lighting Design and Research Award will help further the education of students enrolled in undergraduate lighting courses at the University of California, Davis.
Fluorescent lamps currently constitute 80 percent of lamps installed in the U.S. commercial sector, according to the Department of Energy's latest Lighting Market Characterization report. LED lighting products are receiving a great deal of attention for their potential to replace fluorescent lighting, reduce energy use and improve lighting quality in a variety of indoor commercial applications, including offices, classrooms and retail stores.
UC Davis was honored with this year's Powering Prosperity award, which is sponsored by PG&E. The award recognizes UC Davis's contributions to the economic vitality of the Sacramento region and the university's leadership role fostering the research and development of strategies and policies, as well as products and services, that improve sustainability and energy efficiency.
American Honda Motor Co., Inc. hosted an open house event to showcase the Honda Smart Home US on Tuesday, March 25 at UC Davis West Village. UC Davis, CLTC and the WCEC collaborated with Honda to design and build the model zero net energy (ZNE) home. It uses a photovoltaic (PV) system and ultra-efficient lighting and HVAC technologies to produce more power than household operations consume.
The California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) held its 10th Annual Luminaire Design Competition on March 13, 2014. Each year since CLTC’s founding, Professor Michael Siminovitch has provided the UC Davis undergraduate students in his Designing with Light class (DES136B) with a design challenge that spans the full 10 weeks of the course. Lighting courses at UC Davis are taught through the Department of Design, under the College of Letters and Science’s Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies.
