11.06.09 | We’re Putting Our Green Initiatives Up in Lights
What do a retrocommissioned HVAC system that has saved 32 percent in energy costs, OUTSIDE at the Research Park, and LED lights have in common? We know you don’t need a hint, but we suspect you’ll be intrigued by the newest addition to our green initiatives.
In early 2010, we plan to unveil a solid-state, glare-free LED lighting system for our Lobby that will save energy, reduce labor costs, increase our flexibility in setting the mood for events through color, allow for dimmer and brighter areas that will better fit Lobby activities, integrate into our emergency system, and let us put up in lights our commitment to sustainability, green practices, the environment, and this community.
Renaissance Lighting has designed a revolutionary system that is nearly 100 percent recyclable. These lights have no mercury or lead, consume only one-fifth the energy of incandescent bulbs, and fit seamlessly into our ceiling. This aesthetically and architecturally sensitive retrofitting was two years in the making and earned a grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.
The choice of an LED system turned out to be an obvious one. Did you know:
—that the Lobby contains 675 incandescent ceiling lights?
—that those lights shine approximately 17 hours each day?
—that those lights burn 360 days each year?
That’s a total of 6,120 hours of brightness-creating output a year. Since a single bulb typically lasts no more than 2,000 hours—or about 118 days around here—our building operations workers climb up and down ladders entirely too many times to replace an awful lot of burned-out husks.
You probably do know that incandescent bulbs—like the ones that some of us still use in our table lamps, overhead lights, and outdoor fixtures at home—are inefficient. They get hot, so that means we end up spending more on cooling costs (but less on heating costs) to keep the Lobby temperature steady. They take a lot of energy to run, so that means high power bills (especially with 675 bulbs). And about 90 percent of the energy it takes to keep them running turns into heat rather than light (remember cooking cakes in the Easy-Bake Oven?).
You may also know that they are hazardous to our environment. The wires in the bulbs’ filaments contain lead, so when these lights get sent to landfills, that toxic mineral can seep into groundwater and can affect the quality of the soil. The bulbs are almost impossible to recycle, so often there’s no choice but to send them to those landfills (we pay a fee to recycle all of the incandescent and fluorescent bulbs we have around the building).
Compact fluorescent bulbs—which many homes and businesses now use exclusively—offer cost and energy savings over incandescent ones but can’t match the far superior savings with the LED system. And because they contain mercury and are not easily recyclable, compact fluorescents require special disposal processes that add to their costs.
Our Lobby was conceived to be warm, inviting, spacious, and welcoming. The teak parquet floors, creamy Italian marble, rich brick, and recessed lighting create the perfect ambience for coming together, meeting others, and reveling in the arts. With this LED system, our grandly open Lobby will only feel more glorious, more enveloping, more wondrous. We can’t wait to let it shine.
