Environment Killer Hiding in Our Buildings
Every morning you are the first to arrive to work. You unlock the doors, shut off the alarm, turn on the lights and start the coffee maker. As you make your way to your desk you haven't a clue that you have just enabled one of the biggest polluters of the planet. I am talking about your lights.
True, your lights don't have a tailpipe and they don't emit exhaust but they consume electrical energy in order to produce light. It is the electrical consumption of the buildings lighting system that is causing environmental pollution. The lights use electricity at a rate far greater than you could guess. Current figures from the EPA show that a buildings lighting system accounts for approximately 30% of a buildings total energy consumption.
Now exactly where does your lighting system produce Carbon emissions? At the power plant that is creating the electricity. The Department of Energy annually gets reports from about 220 power generating companies in the U.S. The report the power company fills out is the EIA-1605. It is a very detailed report and from this information the DOE creates a table of conversion factors to calculate Carbon Dioxide emissions based on the electrical consumption. Here in Michigan from the 2006 EIA-1605 Summary Report, the conversion factor is 1.6906 lbs CO2/kWh.
What this means is that for every kilo Watt hour (kWh) of electricity you use in Michigan, you are responsible for emitting 1.6906 lbs of CO2 into the atmosphere.
So, if you have ten 100 Watt light bulbs and you leave them on for one hour you are responsible for putting 1.6906 lbs of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Looking at just ten light bulbs does not put the problem into proper perspective. To see the magnitude of the problem and the impact buildings have on the environment let's look at an average 40,000 sq ft commercial building. From my experience, each building on average will have lighting systems that consumed approximately 80 kW of electricity. With an average usage of 220 hours of lights each month, that building would use 17,600 kWh of electricity every month and 211,200 kWh every year. This means that the lighting system from a single 40,000 sq ft commercial building is responsible for putting 357,054 lbs of CO2 into the atmosphere every year!
Making People Aware of the Problem
Recently I was talking with the owner of a building and he was of the opinion that if you turn the switch on and get light, then everything is good. He was aware of Green House Gas emissions and the need to reduce them but he didn't make the connection between his lights and the environment. After explaining about electricity generation and the CO2 emissions, he still didn't realize that he could significantly reduce Green House Gas emissions by upgrading his lighting system. He wasn't aware that lighting technology has changed.
So I started of by asking "During the past twenty years you have owned this building how many time have you upgraded your PC's and computers?" He just laughed. The number of upgrades his company had done was six and they were in the planning stages of the seventh upgrade.
Then I asked, "During that same twenty years how many times did you upgrade your lighting system?" Not once. In the course of twenty years they only replaced lamps and ballasts as they failed.
Only recently has the lighting industry worried about energy efficiency. The creation of the Energy Star program by the EPA (www.energystar.gov) has gotten lighting manufacturers to focus on creating more energy efficient products. The outcome is startling.
For instance, practically all office buildings have installed the common four lamp fluorescent light fixture that consumes about 176 kW of electricity. There are four of the forty Watt lamps and two magnetic ballasts in each fixture. Using new lighting products the old four lamp fixture can be replaced with a two lamp fixture that uses only about 60 kW of electricity. The net result is a savings of approximately 66% percent.
Old Four Lamp New Two Lamp Net Savings
kWh used each month 28.160 kWh 9.6 kWh 18.56 kWh
Operating Cost $2.53 $0.86 $1.67
CO2 Emitted Monthly 47.6 lbs 16.23 lbs 31.37 lbs
With the above example I had the building owner's attention. He could reduce his buildings CO2 emissions substantially AND upgrade his entire lighting system AND have the upgrade program pay for itself.
Lighting as the Environmental Target
While everyone likes to focus on transportation as a source of Green House Gas emission the EPA has identified the process of generating electricity as the single largest source of CO2 emissions in the United States. The generation of electricity represents 40.5% of all emissions. This is the biggest target that people can individually attack and make significant progress in the reduction of Green House Gas emissions.
Of all the appliances that use electricity, lights are the single biggest consumer. Earlier I stated the EPA statistic that lights account for 30% of a building's operating costs. Using newer lighting technology this country could easily reduced the electrical consumption by half and get more and better light. The DOE reports that in 1999 the U.S. total CO2 emissions were 2,244,804 Thousand Metric Tons. If every building in the U.S were to undergo a lighting upgrade and reduce the lighting energy usage by half, we could potentially reduce the CO2 emissions of the U.S. by 134,688 Thousand Metric Tons a year.
Fiscally Responsible Conservation
The biggest roadblock to conservation is cost. Everyone is interested in talking about conservation but they are not willing to fund these projects. Finding projects where you can make a huge impact on the environment and not have to fund it is difficult. The easiest target for conservation is lighting because of the huge savings realized by using newer technology. By reducing the monthly cost of your lights by about half, you will have the funding necessary to pay for the upgrade.
The key to successfully implementing a conservation program is twofold. First people have to be aware that they can make their own impact on the environment and secondly they have to make a commitment to follow through. Awareness that lighting upgrades can actually fund themselves is the place to start.
On the residential side everyone should immediately stop purchasing incandescent light bulbs. Australia, Canada, Cuba and several other countries have all ready outlawed the use of incandescent light bulbs and the reasons are clear. On average a compact fluorescent bulb uses less than a third of the electricity that a comparable incandescent light bulb does. The compact fluorescent has a substantially longer life cycle than the incandescent bulb as well. A single compact fluorescent bulb can annually save a consumer over $10 a year in electricity usage alone.
On the commercial side the savings are greater but overcoming objections to upgrade are bigger. People are fearful that conservation upgrades will cost them money and impact their business. The real problem is knowledge.
Most people don't realize the actual number of lights that are installed in their buildings is actually quite large. From my experience is seems like the average number of devices in a 40,000 sq ft building is approximately 1,800. This takes into account all ceiling fixtures, exit signs, outside wall packs, parking lot lights, etc. Also from my experience the cost of the upgrade divided by the monthly energy savings that can be realized across 1,800 devices comes out to be on the average about 40 months. Please note that the ROI of forty months is a straight division of the cost of the upgrade divided by the monthly savings. Also, because this can be considered a capital upgrade to the facility there are tax benefits for the Company as well. This means that you can upgrade your lighting system, help the environment and do it with out any Capital investment!
The benefit to the environment is even bigger that you can imagine. From the projects I have been involved in the average reduction in energy usage in these kinds of projects has been 38 kW. With the lights turned on for about 220 hours each month that comes out to a savings of about $725 each month. The monthly CO2 emission reduction is a staggering 14,133 lbs of CO2! Annually the building will reduce its CO2 emissions by 169,600 lbs.!!
From the bigger picture, if a substantial number of buildings can be optimized a major strain will be taken off of the North American power grid. Power companies can be saved from having to build new power plants.
We can individually do our part to reduce Green House Gas Emission; we just need to be aware of what we can do. Individually we have to make a commitment to ourselves, focus on a specific target and then we have to follow through on our commitment. One of the easiest targets to hit is lighting and with the savings that can be realized, lighting should be the first target we go after.
By: James M. Strzyzewski
Phone: (248) 265-6677
