Department of Energy Finishes Largest Zero-Energy Building in US Read more: Department of Energy Finishes Largest Zero-Energy Building in US
Walking the walk is key when playing the environmental game, which is why we’re thrilled to report that the United States Department of Energy has completed their new zero-energy research building in Colorado. It clocks in at 222,000 square feet and is the largest zero-energy building in the United States. Boasting 50% less energy usage than a conventional building of its size and a huge array of on-site solar panels, the new Research Support Facility is able to produce all the energy it needs to function without borrowing from the grid. The US government certainly seems to be leading by example with this passive beauty.
The Research Support Facility is located on the Golden, Colorado campus of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It will officially open in late August and it will be the working home of 800 federal employees. The building employs techniques new and old to reach its zero-energy status, many of which are hundreds of years old and help the building make the best of natural light from the sun as well as use the earth below it to help heat and cool the building.
Typical office buildings use as much as 30% of their energy expenditure on lighting – not so with the Research Support Facility. The entire east-to-west facing facade is made of as much glass as possible and brings light to all of the building’s interior spaces. It is also outfitted with a smart lighting system which sends employees an on screen message on their computer monitor telling them when to open their blinds. Much of the construction material in the building is recycled including reclaimed steel natural gas pipes that are being used as structural columns. The DOE is hoping that this new building achieves a LEED Platinum rating for all of its green bells and whistles, and it looks like they have a great shot.
LIVE LAMP is a Plant-Studded Sphere of Light
Posted by LED Larry in Uncategorized on July 12th, 2010
Fluorescent lights might not be your first choice for ambient outdoor lighting this summer, but the LIVE LAMP transforms that unenchanting frigid glow into a beautiful globe radiating with life. Designed by Kara Bartlet for the Summer 2010 to(HOLD) line, this otherworldly piece is a glowing glass orb patterned with eighty living Fuschii V Gracillis Tillandsia air plants.
Kept alive by an energy-efficient CFLgrow lamp that attaches within the orb, these epiphytic plants survive with no dirt – just UV, air, and a little bit moisture. With no green thumb required – except for a spritz of water once a week – you can keep those hands free from the rougher perils of gardening, saving them for more enterprising summer activities.
Millennium Visual Systems Reaches Distribution Agreement with PolyBrite International, Inc.
Leading Distributor Offering PolyBrite’s Borealis® LED Lamps
Chestnut Ridge, NY. – Tuesday, June 29, 2010 – Millennium Visual Systems today announced it has signed a distribution agreement with PolyBrite International, Inc., manufacturer of Borealis® LED Lamps and Lighting Systems. Millennium is adding the new line of Borealis products to their existing portfolio of LED lighting technology solutions. The company is an established national supplier of both indoor and outdoor LED lighting solutions.
Millennium will offer the new Borealis® line of LED lamps including patented A19, B10, PAR38, R20, MR16, T8, Panel and Street Lights, High and Low Bay lighting in a variety of color temperatures. The Borealis brand utilizes PolyBrite’s proprietary polymer technology, and achieves maximum brightness, unparalleled performance, and unrivaled light quality. The Borealis line is designed with dimming capabilities and fit into standard fixtures.
Borealis® LED products consume up to 90% less energy than traditional lighting with no radiant heat or Ultraviolet Rays (UV). Providing at least 50,000 hours of operation, Borealis lamps are virtually unbreakable and shock resistant resulting is a significant reduction on energy consumption, maintenance and recycling cost without compromising the quality of light and the environment.
“Our customers will now have the option of using a safe lighting alternative to environmentally taxing Incandescent and Fluorescent lighting.” said Dave Goldberg, Chief Operating Officer of Millennium Visual Systems. “Our agreement with PolyBrite follows our company’s ongoing commitment to earth conscious practices.” Mr. Goldberg further noted that “At Millennium we are deeply committed to providing earth friendly, energy efficient products to promote living a “green” lifestyle.”
“PolyBrite is delighted to appoint Millennium as a stocking distributor for Borealis® LED products. Our agreement strengthens our distribution channels within the lighting industry,” said Carl Scianna, President and CEO for PolyBrite International. “Millennium will stock Borealis products in-house, and provide customers with their highly regarded customer service when purchasing PolyBrite’s Borealis LED products.”
About Millennium Visual Systems: Headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, NJ with business operations in Chestnut Ridge, NY, Millennium Visual Systems designs, produces, sells, and services electronic signs, programmable displays, LED bulbs and emergency lighting that is widely used in government, schools, hospitals, offices, factories, restaurants and retail businesses. Millennium is nationally known for their reputation of delivering quality, reliable products, supported by a high level of professionalism to ensure customer satisfaction. For more information on Millennium’s line of LED products call (845) 356-4100 or visit at www.millenniumvisuals.com, Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin.
About PolyBrite International: PolyBrite International, Inc. has established itself as an innovative global LED lighting technology company since 1995. PolyBrite designs, develops and maintains complete control in manufacturing solid-state lighting products, creating LED lamps, Street Lighting, Panel and Tube Lighting and complete Signage lighting systems under its Borealis® Lighting brand. The Borealis brand of products utilizes PolyBrite’s proprietary polymer technology and patent pending designs, bringing the energy efficiency, environmental sustainability and economic advantages of LED technology to the marketplace. More information on PolyBrite’s Borealis brand of products is available on the Internet at www.polybrite.com or www.borealislighting.com or by calling 1-800-320-3801.
New Rollable Solar Panels Make Roof Installations a Snap!
Flexible rolling solar panels stand to significantly reduce production and installation costs or solar panels of rooftops. With a notable 11% efficiency, the easily-installed thin-film panels may be able to give traditional silicon panels a run for the money.
We can’t wait to see what architects can do with lightweight, bendable solar panels. Rather than using expensive glass and aluminum frames, these units can be literally rolled directly onto metal or flat roofs — thus saving money in materials, time and the extra engineering and upgrades a traditional rack would take. The panels use a Copper-Indium-Gallium-Selenide (CIGS) process that can produce very long panels but does not require a clean room. The cells are mounted on a flexible foil, and pig tail connectors at the end plug into on another to expedite the installation.
Focus on Outdoor Lighting
The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has announced the 10 winning teams of the national competition “Kommunen in neuem Licht” (“Towns in a New Light”). The competition provides funding to introduce LED outdoor lighting in 10 towns around Germany. The organizers were taken by surprise when the number and quality of proposals exceeded all expectations. Among 141 participating towns from all over Germany, the ten best proposals will be granted up to EUR 2 million in sponsorship by the BMBF. The winning towns and districts are: Erfurt, Görlitz, Königsfeld, Wuppertal, Trier, Norden, München, Paderborn, Freiburg (Breisgau), and Rietberg.
Bringing down the cost of high-volume LED production
If manufacturing technology development efforts now underway produce even a fraction of their projected improvements in production efficiency, solid-state lighting cost per lumen should come down drastically in the next few years. Driven by the growing market opportunity, and by $23 million in funding by the US Department of Energy (DOE), semiconductor equipment makers and their device-maker partners are at work on a series of projects. Each of these aims at major 30-50% improvements in basic manufacturing cycle time, yield, and cost, in part by applying approaches learned from high-volume semiconductor production (see http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/7/1/12).
The greater semiconductor supply chain is starting to turn serious attention to the particular needs of the HB-LED market, as almost $1billion will be invested in building and equipping device-production facilities this year, according to SEMI’s Opto/LED Fab Watch.
Navigating uncharted waters: new challenges in specifying LED luminaire lifetime
Understanding and quantifying the behavior of a single LED, and calculating how this will affect a system with multiple LEDs, are crucial if lighting companies are to set their system warranty level correctly and assess the cost of failures potentially occurring within the warranty period.
Power LED manufacturers claim many advantages for their products over traditional light sources; one is their presumed ultra-long life. In applications that cannot tolerate failure, or where maintenance and repair are difficult or costly, long operating lifetime and extended maintenance cycles are attractive, even when balanced against relatively high purchase costs.
Luminaire manufacturers, and lighting designers and specifiers, have generally been reassured by the claims from LED manufacturers that their devices will typically operate for 50,000 hours. But in fact, the claims of long operating life for LEDs, as for any component, only apply under certain conditions. What is more, LEDs can and do fail in rare cases
Light+Building showcases sophisticated LEDs
With more than 180,000 visitors, no-one can deny the status of Light+Building, held this year in mid-April in Frankfurt, Germany, as one of the world’s pre-eminent tradeshows for the lighting industry.
With more than 180,000 visitors, no-one can deny the status of Light+Building, held this year in mid-April in Frankfurt, Germany, as one of the world’s pre-eminent tradeshows for the lighting industry. LEDs were everywhere, at least in the halls focused on lighting technology and applications. As we discussed in the Commentary piece in our last issue, exhibition booths lit with LED-based fixtures are no longer a novelty. Many lighting companies have now moved well beyond the discussion phase and are clearly committed to incorporating LED technology into their current and future generations of fixtures. In this show report, we present some of the products that caught the eye.
Efficient LED planar lighting begins at the light source
Posted by LED Larry in New LED Technology on June 24th, 2010
Over the last decade we have witnessed mainstream market adoption of LED technology. This has been due to the phenomenal improvement in performance and reliability of highpower LEDs, and the reduction in cost that stems from high-volume manufacturing. These improvements mean LEDs have replaced traditional lighting in many applications. Early uses of LEDs included indication lights and traffic signals, while today we see a wide range of applications such as retail and display lighting, indoor and outdoor signage, wall-mounted fixtures, backlighting for LCDs, and even the replacement of incandescent bulbs. Developments in LED technology have also brought about the creation of new applications that did not exist before, specifically in the decorative and architectural lighting sectors.
One of the common denominators for many new applications of LED technology is planar lighting. LED planar lighting refers to the application of LEDs to create uniform surfaces of light. Since LEDs are a point source, creating large surfaces of uniform light has always been cost prohibitive, and has resulted in a significant loss of efficiency. However, a new technology has emerged that establishes LED planar lighting as a generic product category, without compromising on optical efficiency, product form factor or volume capabilities.
5 ways to save money for your business while saving the planet. Save Green, stay Green
Reuse and Recycle Office Supplies
- Use the back side of paper
- Don’t use post its, use free online apps like: TaDa
- Ship packages from reused boxes, alert your customers why you are reusing boxes, they will know you are energy conscious, and be more likely to come back
- Provide employees with non-disposable forks / plates / mugs as opposed to paper or throwaway items
- Print less out
- Buy recycled copy paper, refillable pens, and recycled office supplies. Here is a great place for that: The Green Office
Reduce Energy Consumption
- Use fewer gas powered products
- Use Solar, wind and water energy generators. View our Solar options.
- Regulate your Thermostat
- Bring a sweater in the winder
- Purchase energy –efficient heaters
Use Biodegradable and Less Toxic Cleaning Products
- Sea salt makes a course but gentle cleanser for scouring when mixed with baking soda.
- Baking soda not only cleanses but also gets rid of odors.
- Vinegar removes grease and dirt, and white vinegar gets rid of carpet odors.
- Essential lavender oil makes for a nice room deodorizer with a calming effect.
- Citrus juice and peels are great room fresheners.
- A great new technology that uses only water!! Check it out (Promise it amazing)
Make Your Business Environment Greener
- By adding living plants and/or a water feature to your business, you make it a healthier workspace. Living plants such as spider plants, peace lilies, and philodendrons filter out the pollutants in the air. You can save money by taking cuttings from one plant to make new plants. A water feature in your business humidifies and ionizes the air, cutting down on the level of static electricity. The sound of the water both relaxes and energizes you while you work. Get a money tree for good business prosperity!
Lighting:
- Buy Energy efficient lighting solutions. Think of them as an investment that will pay off in the long run. View our selection of LED Light bulbs for restaurant, home, and business use.