daylighting saves

The American Clean Energy and Security Act, ACES, H.R. 2454, previously known as the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, was recently passed by the US House of Representatives on 26 June 2009. The Bill is authored by the House Energy & Commerce Committee and is sponsored by the Committee’s Chairman, Congressmen, Henry Waxman (D-California) and by the Chairman of the Environment & Energy Sub-committee, Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts). The bill, regularly referred to as the, “Cap & Trade,” bill, was written to spread country wide mandates for the use of renewable energy systems as well as reduction in carbon output by heavy industry, truck fleets as well as energy producers around the country specifically utilizing coal fired electrical production. The bill will have dramatic changes to the cost of energy as well as large users will now be subject to reducing their global footprint or risk fines or taxation.

Of specific note in this bill is Title III – Reducing Global Warming Pollution. This part of the legislation would create a national cap-and-trade scheme that would reduce GHG emissions from major sources by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 relative to 2005 levels. What most people don’t realize is that a majority of the electrical energy production in the United States is created utilizing coal fired electric plants. Each region of the country has varying degrees of coal fire production, but on average, your local utility could be using greater than 70% of its electrical production directly from coal fire plants. Being a target of this legislation, your utility provider will face a fine or taxation for their production of coal fired electricity which will in turn cause an increase in the cost of electricity as well as the utility to look outside for alternative energy production sources. This too in turn will increase electricity. If you are a large user of electricity or operate a large fleet of trucks like major retailers do, you will also face your own increase in costs through taxation or fines if your production is in excess of 23,000 metric tons.

The basis for this legislation is to incentivize all Americans to look at reducing our carbon footprints while reducing our reliance on foreign oil and carbon based fuels. Without incentives, cheap energy production would be preferred over more costly sources even at a risk to our environment. The reduction of carbon based energy production has always been the mantra of the daylighting world. Electric lighting sources make up approximately 20% - 60% of the energy usage in buildings based on their usage. High performance daylighting is a passive solar way to dramatically reduce your buildings carbon footprint by reducing the use of electricity from both lighting as well as A/C. High performance daylighting with lighting controls can reduce electric lighting use by as much as 70% during the highest cost and highest demand time of the day. It also is doubly important during summer months when energy production is at it’s greatest levels due to the fact that the sun is the single largest impact for the need for electricity. High performance daylighting could single handedly reduce our national carbon output by up to 40% during daylight hours and cost a fraction of other renewable technologies such as photovoltaic panels and wind energy.
If you think about it… the most cost effective and efficient solution for reducing our countries carbon footprint quite clearly could be high performance daylighting. After all, there’s no greater efficiency than off!

In the not to distant future, building owners will face the challenge of not only reducing energy usage in their buildings, but the elevated challenge of obtaining a carbon neutral footprint. Europe has already implemented carbon standards and mandates for business owners and the call for reduction the world over is an every day topic. Earlier this year, the State of California announced building codes that will ultimately make commercial / industrial building owners obtain carbon neutrality by the year 2030. The U.S. Federal Government has also put carbon mandates into play with the introduction of Cap & Trade legislation that has yet to be enacted.
What does this mean for building owners?

Well, most people don’t realize that the majority of electricity production in the U.S. comes from coal fired production plants which produces a large amount of our national carbon output. So it makes sense to look to electricity reduction as a way to achieve a carbon neutral facility. Much emphasis has been put on reducing our use of carbon based fuels for the production of electricity by implementing the use of renewable energy sources such as solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind power. However, electricity usage from lighting in commercial / industrial buildings amounts for about 40% of the total energy usage on average and most businesses operate under a first shift schedule that typically coincides with daylight hours of the day. For low rise commercial and industrial buildings, high performance daylighting with lighting controls provides the most cost effective and efficient solution for the reduction of electric lighting use in these buildings.

Properly designed, high performance daylighting can eliminate the need for lighting by as much as 70% on an annual basis. If you think about it, why use the power of the sun, to create energy through PV panels, to bring into a building to turn lights on when the sun’s light is so abundant? Even on overcast days, buildings can be illuminated by the sun.

With high performance daylighting with high visible light transmission and 100% diffusion, a building owner can simply utilize the power of the sun to bypass the production of energy and just turn off the lights through lighting controls. This can be done with less than 5% of the roof top, leaving 95% of the roof to include other renewable energy technologies such as PV to help in creating the carbon neutral footprint needed to meet future legislation. Daylighting is the lowest cost solar options for the majority of building owners and a solution that will play a major role in helping to reduce a building’s carbon footprint. After all, there’s no greater efficiency than off!

How did Coca-Cola achieved its daylighting initiatives? http://ow.ly/l9JN ^DR

New-look Wal-Mart comes to Falls: http://bit.ly/A6iZW via @addthis