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Energy Efficient Lighting Supply

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:12:19 +0100

The Sustainable Construction Blog is proud to announce their newest partner, the Energy Efficient Lighting Supply. Energy Efficient Lighting Supply has recently launched their brand new store of affordable automated lighting supplies for all your energy efficient lighting needs.

The store features many products, but most proudly offers the lowest prices on occupancy sensor switches. This modern lighting component can save you loads of money on your energy bills, while providing the interior of your home or office a futuristic, upgraded look. Occupancy sensors range from ceiling mounted to wall mounted and passive infrared to ultrasonic. Whether you are looking for residential or commercial use, Energy Efficient Lighting Supply is sure to have you covered.

We are most proud to partner with Energy Efficient Lighting Supply because of their commitment to sustainability and smart DIY renovations. Keep checking back at http://occupancysensorswitch.com for the latest in automated in lighting technology, and their line of LED under cabinet lighting kits and components for your next sustainable kitchen renovation.

Demand Response for Sustainable Infrastructure

Thu, 17 May 2012 02:01:54 +0100

photo source: nj.com

--Our current energy grid suffers from a lack of communication and shared information. Demand response is one solution that is transforming the energy industry.

For the past few decades, our nation's infrastructure has struggled to keep up with the exponentially rising energy demand. The rise in demand is mostly due to our growing dependence on technology, and as businesses turn to new technology, they rely on the energy grid to support their business more than anything. Energy is something that consumers generally take for granted, but since the blackouts in 2003 we have realized how economically devastating loss of power can be.

The object of demand response is to reduce the demand from the grid during peak hours. Peak demand refers to the hours of the day when most people are home from work, cooking dinner, or watching TV. In the United States, peak demand would usually be between the hours of 6 pm and 9 pm. Demand response groups take this into consideration, and gather regional consumption data with the support of larger corporations that conduct energy intensive operations. The idea is for these companies to coordinate and shift operations when possible to lower peak demands. Energy costs are higher when the demand peaks; so when power plants don't have to work as hard they are not only saving carbon emissions, but the consumers are also saving money.

Residential demand response groups work a little bit differently. Overall, promoting awareness of when peak demand is and that reducing non-essential power loads during peak hours can save money is the focus of most groups and services. More effectively, this idea has been churning into technological advances in smart grid technology. A smart grid refers to the communication and sharing of real-time information between the residential and commercial consumers and the utilities that provide the power. In general, the current grid tells the utilities how much power it produces at any given moment; which dictates the price of energy along with other involved operational costs.

Essentially, a smart grid would consist of networked sensors at the power plant's substations providing power to certain sub regions and at each consumer's utility meter. When the smart grid knows who is consuming energy where and when, everyone benefits. The utility can adjust output to sub regions that need more power while borrowing it from others that do not need as much at that time without increasing overall production. The consumers, both residential and commercial, can access this information from the internet and other networked smart grid tools in order to respond accordingly; a business shifting operations, and a consumer understanding when to run the dishwasher or turn their computer off if their not using it. This is the culmination of what demand response groups are trying to orchestrate, and the benefits are universally invaluable.

It will be interesting to see the smart grid industry develop and how many other industries may need to adjust their product development to be compatible with the smart grid.

Trending Sustainable Senior Living Communities

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:02:58 +0100

--Recent economic and social trends support the opportunities that sustainable communities offer more than ever.

Traditionally, sustainable communities have been the business of many European cultures; and more recently, popular among a certain population of the west coast. However, there is a growing demographic in the United States that could greatly benefit from the unique opportunities offered by sustainable communities.

The 'Baby Boomer' generation is coming of the age of retirement, and many are finding it difficult to retire when they thought they could. This is due to many reasons pertaining to reductions in social security available, and the suffering stock market in this recession. But maybe most detrimental to many Baby Boomers' retirement plans is the suffering real estate market. In many parts of the nation sale prices of homes are at an all-time low when inflation is considered. People of age to retire are forced to sell their homes well below what their value 8 years ago. And it is for these reasons that an alternative retirement lifestyle must be considered.

An alternative retirement lifestyle is not a compromise on quality, but only means that smart and innovative decisions must be made in order to achieve a desired retirement. Sustainable senior living communities consider the social and economic advantages of using high performance building techniques, aspects of cohousing, and renewable energy sources.

A combination of high performance or superinsulated building techniques creates a sound foundation for any sustainable building or development. And while off grid utilities are ideal, they are often unpractical, especially when trying to offer active seniors a certain luxuries in life. However, the combination of lowered energy loads by use of superior building construction, and the introduction of an alternative energy source can become very economical; offering the communities' inhabitants a lifetime of low cost energy that is less susceptible to rising energy costs.

The idea of shared spaces and commodities is strong principal adopted from cohousing that is used by innovative sustainable communities. In many cases, active seniors will be downsizing from larger family-sized homes to smaller cottages or residential units in sustainable communities. This involves the difficult task of getting rid of many assets you own and love. Fortunately, sustainable communities provide the economic advantage and convenience of allowing you to possess all these same amenities without the cost or burden of moving and storing them. Examples of shared spaces and commodities would be a wood shop or sewing room, possibly a shed to store tools and equipment for the community gardens, and common areas to enjoy the sense of community and family.

When economy of scale is considered in all of these amenities, one can start to see the advantages of sustainable communities for active senior living. Developers can offer low cost housing with the freedom to have all of the things you used to and a priceless like-minded community of people to share your time with.

Aquascape Green Roof Failure

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:43:01 +0100

--Speculating on why the green roof collapsed in St. Charles, Illinois and who is at fault.

A little over a month ago, the largest sloped green roof in North America collapsed. There has been speculation as to why this roof collapsed, but no firm conclusions have been made as the investigation continues. The president of Aquascape, commented on the incident in a press release saying that the snow had melted on the roof but could not drain because of ice blocking the drainage system. It has been further explained that the sequence of unordinary weather conditions involving almost two feet of snow, freezing temps at night and 40 degree weather the next day, had allowed the circumstance to occur.

While this seems like a likely explanation reinforced by weather data on the corresponding days, I cannot come to agreement with this theory. As an Architectural Engineering student, I find it hard to believe that not enough safety factors had been built into the structural design of this roof that even if the loads involved were applied, the structure would not fail. And while green roofs are a newly implemented technology in commercial construction in the United States, I do not think that the engineers handled the calculations incorrectly. Designing with green roof loads is not very difficult as dead loads (green roof system’s components, thickness of soil, and vegetation per square foot) are fairly uniform. In addition, the live loads (snow, ice, and maximum water retention of the soil are also uniform and would be designed for peak load simultaneously using even safety factors over 50%. For this reason the behavior of a green roof and loads applied are known and will be, in essence, over-engineered by code to avoid this type of failure.

Keeping all of this in mind, what else could have caused this collapse if the beam sizes and connections were designed appropriately?

This is the type of question that has construction managers and contractors shaking in their work boots. As new sustainable technology is implemented into large construction projects there is a lot of room for error. Rarely, are these failures a result of poor technology, but a lack of compliance to specified installation instructions. Contractors unfamiliar with this new construction tend to make mistakes that get covered up until forensic investigations uncover them after tragic events.

Incidents such as the Aquascape green roof collapse should not discourage people from using sustainable products and technologies in new buildings but should emphasize the need for construction managers and contractors that are familiar with the new technology. It will be interesting to see what the forensic investigation concludes.

5 questions with ZamRay.com

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:00:26 +0100

ZamRay.com is quickly becoming a popular name within the sustainable construction industry and for good reason. ZamRay offers unique services in one convenient location that can effectively connect the construction industry. While the main purpose of this internet start up is to allow its users to buy and sell surplus and reclaimed material, there are many other components of the website that make it a useful source to improve construction projects across the nation.

Earlier this week I had a chance to converse with the founder and managing director of ZamRay, Kurt Fisher. The following Email interview with Kurt reveals a unique and in-depth outlook of what ZamRay has accomplished and their plans for the future.

Interview with Kurt Fisher, founder/managing director of Zamray.com

Since its soft launch earlier this year, many additions have been made to ZamRay.com. What aspect of “connecting the construction industry” do you pride yourself on the most? In other words, which feature of the website do you feel is most powerful in connecting the industry?

The ability for contractors and distributors to finally have a reputable venue to buy and sell their surplus materials has and always be our cornerstone service. It’s what makes us unique.

Our discussion forum and articles sections where you can choose to write or post something in over 30 industry-specific categories is going to be very popular.

Just the fact there is something on ZamRay for everyone on ZamRay, whether you are the CEO or a large General contractor or the smallest of tradesmen working with one truck.
Finally, I think our social media connectivity is proving to be very popular.

It is not hard to see how ZamRay offers services to the construction industry that can greatly contribute to sustainable construction projects. In addition to the support of the Sustainable Construction Blog, have you made any connections to other affiliations in the sustainable construction industry?

Yes! We are now members of the USGBC and we are in the process of getting heavily involved with the local USGBC chapter in our hometown of Denver, CO. We are also working on trying to figure out a way for when building owners use ZamRay for buying or selling recycled materials in can count towards LEED certification points or credits.

ZamRay has been referred to as the Craigslist of the construction industry. In what ways does ZamRay make it easier and more practical for contractors to buy and sell surplus material?

Well for one it says a lot when we are referred to as the Craig’s List of the industry!

1. Simplicity – Anything we put on our site has to be simple for people to use. Our buy and sell functionality was designed with that in mind where it is extremely easy to place and view ads

2. Search capabilities – The key to our buy/sell process is how simple and granular you can get on searching for material. Especially in the electrical industry, where there are over 10,000 parts & pieces and being able to search by a part#, size, location is absolutely huge.

3. It’s practical because there is an obvious void in the buy/sell. Having been on both the contracting side and distribution side of the industry I experienced first-hand all the left over material that goes to waste. If you can buy or sell something for 40 to 60 cents on the dollar why wouldn’t you.

I see ZamRay.com is becoming very popular and has accumulated quite a few votes for the CONEXPO’s most innovative product/technology. Are there any new updates to the website that will be revealed at the show in Las Vegas next week?

We were hoping to have our Mobile App on I-Pad and I-Phone ready to launch but we are not quite there yet. We have a new fun & interactive section to our website that we just implemented. Other than that we are just going to promote how successful ZamRay has been since its inception January 6th. There aren’t many websites that can say they have had 70,000 page views in their first 9 weeks.

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A big thanks to Kurt Fisher and our friends at ZamRay for taking the time to conduct this interview. Their work is appreciated in the sustainable construction industry and we wish with them the best of luck in their continued endeavors. Please support ZamRay.com by visiting their website and signing up as a registered user.

A Lake Erie Wind Energy Project

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 02:57:23 +0100

--LEEDCo, Bechtel, and GE build wind farm pilot project on Lake Erie--

Even though this is not breaking news by any means, I figured it was worthy to mention in the sustainable construction news blog with some updated insight to the project. The Lake Erie Energy Corporation (LEEDCo) is teaming up with General Electric and Bechtel Corporation to build a 20MW wind farm on Lake Erie.

As a Pennsylvania native, I was ecstatic to hear of a wind energy project on Lake Erie, but was disappointed to hear that the wind farm will be located in Ohio. On second thought, Erie, PA and its surround areas do not necessarily have the infrastructure to conveniently accept the alternative energy supply to the grid. Understandably, the project becomes more feasible and attractive when it is located 10 miles offshore from Cleveland. In addition, Ohio has alternative energy initiatives that require 25% of energy consumption to come from clean energy sources.

The alternative energy project will consist of installing GE’s next generation 4MW wind turbines, and tying the supplied energy back to the grid onshore. The 20MW production should prove useful to the economy of the Industrial Valley nearby, who has now be driven to increase manufacturing of wind energy project components. This pilot project is only the beginning of a state-wide push to generate more alternative energy.

LEEDCo expects to continue the project in several phases to increase the wind energy capacity of the Lake Erie project to 1,000 MW by 2020.

London provides the first sustainable Olympics ...and more

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:40:05 +0100

Being the host of the Summer Olympic Games is a privilege and an opportunity for a city and a nation to spark economic growth. London, the host of the 2012 Olympic Games, plans to do more than just that. The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games is a company that is in charge of handling private sector investments and public sector funding. The public funding is provided by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. They are using this opportunity to develop a struggling part of London into a sustainable community that will thrive off of the new infrastructure developed around Olympic Park for many years to come. Accordingly, the focus of all planning and construction is on the ‘legacy’ of the Olympic Games in East London.

Based on England’s grasp of sustainability, I expect the new Olympic venues to harness some of the most sustainable qualities and innovations available. Further than using new ‘green’ materials and technologies, the concepts behind the planning and future of the Olympic sites make it a wholesome sustainable project. The underlying sustainable mentality was based on reusing existing venues when possible, creating permanent structures only where they will be kept for long-term use, and using temporary structures for anything that will be taken down after the games.

In general, the sustainability plan focuses on climate change, biodiversity, waste, inclusion of local community, and healthy living. All of these aspects are considered when designing and planning. It is exciting to learn about all of the new projects and the sustainable development of such a large area and population. The Sustainable Construction Blog will share many posts including details of the construction project and analysis of how London is implementing the sustainability plan into these projects.

The results of this project should provide inspiration to the rest of the world as a model of sustainability.

DOE provides $2 billion for solar energy

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:13:36 +0100

On Saturday, July 5th 2010, President Obama announced his approval of the DOE loan guarantee for solar energy projects. This $1.85 billion in funding takes advantage of last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Other recent ARRA projects received a combined total of $76 million a few weeks ago. These projects received federal funding to produce products that are unique to the sustainable construction industry and also train professionals to be familiar with this equipment and energy efficient building operations. As all ARRA projects do, this funding ultimately is designed to stimulate the economy with domestic manufacturing, and increased job availability. It is debated whether or not this money is being well invested in our economy to support these reasons. However, to the benefit of the sustainable construction industry the loan guarantee has officially been approved.

A large portion, $1.45 billion dollars, will go to Abengoa Solar. The funding will set their Solana Project into the construction phase. The Solana Project, in Gila Bend, AZ, aims to create a large scale solar plant that will produce 280-MW. The construction will provide 1600 jobs and 85 permanent jobs once it is operational in 2013. This will be one of the world’s largest solar power plants. At the expense of over two billion dollars it will serve 70,000 homes.

This is a strong indication of the initial expense of large-scale alternative energy sources. It also has something to say about the fact that it is brand new technology. Hopefully as more large-scale solar plants are built, the price of construction and technology will go down. However, there is no doubt that developing clean energy sources nationwide will be very expensive and take decades. This is not based on a forecast that every electrical company needs a solar power plant because this is not possible and doesn’t make sense for many regions of the country; however this caliber of new technology, when produced for large scale grid applications is very expensive.

The lighter portion of the loan guarantee is a mere $400 million to manufacture thin-film solar panels at two factories. An old Chrysler factory in Indiana will be the new location for one of the manufacturing plants. The other factory expansion will be in Colorado. Abound says it will provide 1500 jobs and continual production of solar panels. A concern for the investment in Abound is presented when competition is considered. The solar panel company First Solar already has a low-cost, thin-film panel in production. Hopefully Abound is capable of producing equivalent technology at a similar price and it may work out that they play against each other to lower their market prices further.

Sheldon Crossing: A luxurious sustainable community

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 17:10:19 +0100

For those who don’t know, Manayunk is a unique urban neighborhood just outside of Philadelphia. Main St., along the Schuylkill River is a popular area that is home to many high end restaurants and shopping. When I heard about a green community in Manayunk I had to check it out.

At first instinct I kind of chuckled to myself; wondering how anyone could actually make a successful sustainable community in Manayunk and actually sell the properties. After touring a model home I learned that the starting price for an unfurnished 3 bedroom/2 bath rowhome is 700k dollars. One can easily make the assumption that the “green” aspect of this carriage-home community is merely a marketing scheme to support the outrageous price tag. I thought maybe this was the case, but in fact I have to applaud their efforts to build responsibly and efficiently because given the building site and existing circumstances, I feel they did a fairly decent job. After all they are trying to obtain LEED platinum certification.

More importantly as a sustainable community, I would like to see this development offer a sustainable lifestyle to the people that live in it. At most, they chose materials that are responsible, partial sustainable utilities, and offer amenities such as an electric car charger in your garage. Utilizing icynene for insulation and structral insulated sheathing, these homes are efficient considering they are stick built.

Alternative energy sources were limited due to the infrastructure of the area. Photovoltaics on the roof help to heat the water and supply partial power. Overall, Sheldon Crossing claims 75% energy savings in their homes. This helps to justify part of the initial investment in a 700k dollar home. The other half of the justification is implied in the “luxury” aspect of their advertisements. They really are nice, and do provide a luxurious, unique interior that is eco-friendly. The real downfall of the community is its location. It’s on a hill with great “green roof” top views of the city, but don’t look down across the street. It’s just not a luxurious area, and I’m not a real estate expert but comparable sized homes in the neighborhood can’t be more than 300k.

They are great looking green homes that offer luxury in a not so luxurious area. Some of the sustainable features that are truly unique to Manayunk are the green roofs with photovoltaic panels. Regardless of minor issues implied with having these properties in a not so sustainable and luxurious area, I am excited to see sustainable projects developed locally.

visit Sheldon Crossing here