At UC Davis, the California Lighting Technology Center is establishing “The Color Lab” in collaboration with the Center for Mind and Brain to explore the impact of discrete color spectra on stress, mood, and alertness.

CalNEXT is a statewide initiative to identify, test, and grow electric technologies and delivery methods to support California’s decarbonized future. CLTC is excited to be part of the CalNEXT team to support the evaluation of electric emerging technologies.

The California Lighting Technology Center, in collaboration with Southern California Edison, RMS Energy Consulting LLC, and the California Energy Alliance, are establishing a working group of industry stakeholders to help develop recommendations that will simplify and clarify the nonresidential lighting and lighting controls language contained in the 2022 Title 24, Part 6 Building Energy Efficiency Standards.

Exterior lighting generally operates from early evening through early morning, a period of little to no renewable energy generation, which means this lighting is primarily powered by carbon-dense fossil fuels. Fossil fuel use is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), poor air quality, water pollution and land degradation. In addition, low-quality exterior lighting characterized by poor color, inappropriate light distribution, and inadequate light levels has also been linked to increased crime rates and reduced physical activity within the surrounding community.

The California Lighting Technology Center developed a series of lighting education videos in support of the 2019 Building Energy Efficiency Standards (Title 24).  Videos cover four key topics:

In June 2017, the President issued Executive Order 13801 on Expanding Apprenticeship in America, which establishes an expansive vision for increasing the number of apprentices in the nation to an unprecedented level across all industries.  The overarching goals of this Apprenticeship: Closing the Skills Gap grant program are threefold:

Interior lighting remains a large component of electricity use in non-residential buildings. In California, electric lighting has both a direct effect on peak load, and an indirect effect by increasing cooling requirements during summer peak hours. Effective daylighting combined with electric lighting dimming controls can directly offset electric lighting energy by reducing lighting levels when necessary to reduce the load on the cooling system.

The Empower Procurement Product Evaluation Hub is an ongoing project aimed at evaluating distributed energy resource (DER) products using a systematic approach and summarizing the data in a way that is useful for large commercial and institutional customers (e.g., K-12 schools, universities, local/state government, agriculture, commercial real estate). The Hub will allow institutions to choose appropriate and efficient products for their application, thereby saving money, energy, and the environment.

Traditional outdoor lighting technologies operate at full power throughout the night, even when areas are vacant.  This extra load, energy waste and light pollution can be averted by updating the lighting system with energy-efficient light sources and lighting controls.  By installing these technologies, adaptive lighting strategies can be implemented that provide the right amount of light when and where it is needed.  

In the fall of 2017, the Mexican Ministry of Energy awarded funding to the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in collaboration with the University of California Davis to establish a lighting technology and design research center known as the Centro de Tecnología de Iluminación (CTI). This is a multi-year, public-private investment focused on addressing growing climate change concerns through translational research committed to clean energy and sustainability in Mexico.