We need light outdoors at night for safety, security, productivity, and enjoyment. Guidelines and technologies available today can help meet these lighting needs while providing good quality lighting that minimizes light pollution, conserves energy, and enhances community ambience, including the effect on wildlife and our view of the starry night sky.

Elevators in modern buildings are faster and more comfortable than their counterparts decades ago. But even when you are standing inside an innovative looking elevator cab, it is hard to identify the green features in the elevator and recognize their energy savings. This issue of e-News details major sustainable features in elevators and escalators and some design considerations.

A building may contain a vast array of efficiency measures, or it may be old and inefficient. Either way, the electricity used in the building will likely be produced with inherent inefficiencies. The efficiency of fossil fuel based electricity production averages 34% (although new combined cycle plants can exceed 50% efficiency). The ultimate efficiency of any building pulling electricity from the grid is limited by that number.

Though more costly to install and more complicated to operate, a chiller plant offers a number of benefits over simple packaged cooling units, including greater energy efficiency, better controllability, and longer life.

Process heating is a significant source of energy consumption in the industrial and manufacturing sectors, and it often results in a large amount of waste heat that is discharged into the atmosphere.

Demand-controlled ventilation (DCV) is a control strategy that varies the amount of ventilation outside air delivered to a space based on input from a single carbon dioxide (CO2) sensor or group of sensors.

This brief explores techniques for identifying and solving pump system problems commonly encountered in existing buildings during retro-commissioning processes.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) introduced new Outdoor Lighting Standards in 2005 to conserve energy and reduce electricity peak demand. The Outdoor Lighting Standards regulate lighting power, controls, and allowed lighting fixture types. Illuminated signs are also covered by the Standards.

By properly designing the exhaust ventilation system for a new commercial restaurant, significant operational savings, energy efficiency, and environmental improvements can be achieved.

In today's modern building stock, elevators can consume five to fifteen percent of a building's total energy usage, depending on the other services running in the building.