Design Briefs: Efficient Lighting Systems
Many of the lighting upgrades that reduce energy consumption also improve the visual environment and provide maintenance savings. Summary: Lighting systems offer extraordinary opportunities for cost-effective energy savings. In addition, many strategies for reducing lighting energy use often can improve the visual environment...

Design Briefs: Lighting Controls
Workers tend to be more productive in a well-lit space that fosters better visual comfort. Summary: Lighting controls can increase the value of commercial buildings by making them more comfortable, productive, and energy efficient. These controls work either by turning lights off when they are not needed or by dimming light output so that no more light is produced than necessary...

Design Briefs: High Intensity Fluorescent Lighting
New high-intensity fluorescents outshine their high-intensity discharge competitors. They are often more efficient and feature lower lumen depreciation rates, better dimming options, instant start-up, and better color rendition. Summary: High-intensity-discharge (HID) light sources, such as metal halide and high-pressure sodium lamps, have long dominated the market for lighting indoor spaces with high ceilings...

Case Studies: Innovative Mechanical Designs in the Sierras
The Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences (TCES) is a three-story, 45,000 ft2 building on Sierra Nevada College’s Lake Campus. Located in Incline Village, Nevada, the building serves as a research laboratory for scientists and students working in the Lake Tahoe watershed region, and includes lab space, offices, classrooms, teaching labs, and various support spaces...

Design Briefs: Skylights with Suspended Ceilings
Traditionally, skylight wells in large, low-rise commercial buildings have been custom designed and site built, an expensive and labor-intensive process. This design brief explores the benefits of a better alternative: splayed modular skylight wells specifically designed for use with suspended ceilings...

Online Tools: EDR Charette
EDR Charette is an online tool that allows you to quickly investigate the energy impacts of various design scenarios on a typical building, and then review the analysis graphically in an easy to understand web-based format. It enables you to quickly "draw" building components with drop down menus, and estimate how different design choices will affect energy use, energy costs, and the surrounding environment...

Case Studies: Building Case Study - A Biotech Lab and Office
The Pharmaceutical Research Institute in La Jolla, California, is a 123,000-square-foot laboratory and office building completed in 1999. Among the energy efficiency measures included in the building are systems for limiting energy waste associated with its 92 fume hoods and its air handling, space conditioning, and lighting systems...

Case Studies: Police Facility Optimizes Savings Using Integrated Energy Solutions
The design team for the Santa Ana Police Headquarters focused on their unique opportunities for reducing energy use at this round-the-clock facility, which includes a holding facility. For instance, a jail demands a large amount of hot water to accommodate laundries, showers, and cooking...

Case Studies: Choosing the Right Photocontrol System for a Warehouse
Timberland, a manufacturer of boots and outdoor clothing, opened its new distribution center in a 400,000-square foot warehouse near Ontario, Calif. This warehouse came equipped with skylights, and lighting controls were installed during tenant improvements...

The Newsletter: Let the sun shine!
Let the Sun Shine! Can we shine some daylight on kids test scores and save energy at the same time? A recent study by a California energy consulting firm suggests that children learn faster and do better on standardized tests in classrooms with more natural daylight...