Sustainable Construction - Assignment Example

Sustainable Construction: The Case for Artificial Lighting With all the environmental and energy depletion issues hounding our society today, there has been growing interest in sustainable development. This paper discusses one approach to achieve sustainability in the built environment - the low energy artificial lighting design. Issues regarding pollution and efficiency rarely discuss artificial lighting as a problem. However, the problem caused by artificial lighting is comparable to vehicle-related pollution. Having realized this, the potential benefits of a low energy artificial lighting system is then assessed thru discussions and a simple lighting design of a commercial area. Business and Sustainability When dealing with sustainable design, one is usually concerned with minimizing negative impacts while optimizing performance and wellbeing. Sustainable development can therefore be seen as fostering competitiveness through efficient management and utilization of assets giving rise to the term 'the triple bottom line' which serves as the core principle of sustainability(Turpin, 2004): Social Environmental Economic. In the business lingo, this is usually referred to as - 'people, planet, profit'. Sustainable design can have beneficial impacts upon companies by reducing energy and material use, waste and other related costs. Not only that, it can also stimulate the employees to higher levels of productivity by providing better working environments and corporate culture. Ideally too, sustainable design can give rise to better services to customers. In simple terms becoming more sustainable results to better risk management and consequently reduced liabilities. (Otto, 2006) Artificial Lighting and Sustainability Issues In the developed and developing countries, artificial lighting is mostly run by power coming from electricity. As a major portion of consumable electricity is still produced through the burning of coal which entails greenhouse gas emissions, one can easily see that lighting 'consumption' does have significant contributions to environmental degradation. Lighting accounts for 30-40% of the energy used in a modern city office. The use of artificial lighting in the built environment has been pointed out to cause 1,900 Megatons of CO2 per year emitted to the environment. This figure is almost 70% of the total emissions coming from light passenger vehicles. This implies that artificial lighting pollution is comparable to that caused by vehicles. The seemingly innocent light bulb is actually a close companion of the car exhaust. Compounding the problem is the large volume of artificial lighting that does not derive its power from electricity generation. Lighting generated by diesel fuel (those used in lighting vehicles, transient structures and diesel fuelled generator) and those produced through paraffin amplifies consumption figures and greenhouse gas emissions related to lighting consumption. Considering that at present, 1.6 billion people are dependent on this lighting production mechanisms, one can get an idea of how large is the volume of greenhouse gases emitted. Although paraffin- and diesel-fuelled lighting comprise only 1% of the world's lighting consumption, it is actually responsible for 20% of the CO2 emissions attributed to lighting. This is because these light producing sources are much less efficient than even the most inefficient incandescent lamp. Annual diesel consumption has also been determined to surpassed the annual oil volume processed in Kuwait or about 3% of the world's oil supply. With the advent of better health care and social conditions, human population grew exponentially. As the volume of consumers grew, so did the amount it needed to consume. Two hundred years ago, a typical English person would consumed 5 kilolumen-hours of artificial light annually as compared to the person today who consumes 60 megalumen-hours. Basic mathematics would tell us that this represented a 12, 000 fold increase within a period of 200 years. And that's just for the typical English gentleman. (Sustainable Development, 2006) From the nation known for its consumer-driven society, we can find the world's largest artificial light consumer. A North American can, on the average, consume 101 megalumen-hours annually. With the United States registering as one of the world's highly populated countries (but not highly dense), it can be surmised that the consumption comes close to unimaginable proportions. Developing countries, are on the average, consuming 3 megalumen-hours per person per year. But with current economic trends, global demand for artificial light is projected to increase by 80% in 2030. If low energy artificial lighting is not developed, global lighting electricity demand can reach 4, 250 TeraWatts-hour (twice the combined power produced by modern nuclear plants) and CO2 emissions reaching 3 gigatonnes. (Greene, 2006) To prevent this from happening, many energy saving devices are being developed and one of them is the low energy artificial lighting. Low energy artificial lamps such as halogen, fluorescent, or high-intensity discharge lamps are 40-70% energy efficient as compared to the incandescent bulb - the main choice for artificial lighting. Low-voltage halogen lamps (those of the 12 volts that can run on the 110 volt system) are even more energy-efficient than regular halogen. With regards to the fluorescent lamp, three to five times more light is given compared to an incandescent bulb. Using a fluorescent lamp in place of incandescent lamp reduces half a ton of carbon dioxide emission and 20 pounds of sulfur oxides (due to electricity or diesel) over its lifetime. A savings of $40 in energy cost is also realized when a fluorescent lamp is used instead of an incandescent lamp. Sample Design To appreciate all the benefits of low energy lighting, a sample design is presented in this section. The basic idea behind the design is to come up with most efficient method of artificial lighting. With a literature review of available products and appropriate calculations, it became possible to design a sustainable commercial store (gallery, kitchen and caf). (Philips Industry, 2004); (The Sustainable Construction Task Group, 2003); (International Energy Agency, 2006); (Energy Manager, 2004) Design Layout The store layout is illustrated in the following: Fig.1 Store Layout Specifications The lighting system to be installed is chosen to be the Philips Low energy lighting system. The following are the reasons: System makes use TL5 lamps which have been proven to be highly energy efficient Lamps are only 16mm diameter making it much slimmer than other low energy lamps. Fig 2. TL5 Lamps Lamp average lifetime is 60,000 hours Contains 80% less mercury and requires less material in their production. Luminaire The luminaire chosen for the project is the Philips TCS 600. The luminaires will be placed in continuous rows to allow even distribution of lighting levels. These will be placed within the gallery, caf and kitchen. The Luminaire employs Omni-directional Luminance Control (OLC) optics giving a unique three-dimensional optical system that eliminates glare from artificial lighting without optical efficiency losses. The luminaire will be suspended since there is no horizontal roof for its placement. Task Lighting Low energy spotlights will be provided for task lighting .The trunking system connecting the luminaries will be designed with provisions fro additional connection for the location of the spotlights. This provision ensures that the system is flexible enough to ensure that illumination of displays within the gallery is greatly facilitated. The chosen spotlights are from the Philips "Folk" range of display luminaires using high performance dichronic lamps. Circulation Area Lighting Floor uplighters will be installed continuously along the light walkway covered by reinforced "frosted" glass to prevent glare from the floor. Corridors servicing toilets and related areas will be illuminated by low energy decorative Samurai wall lights Evaluation The artificial lighting design adapted should ensure energy efficiency and customer comfort and satisfaction all the while satisfying and exceeding best practice guidelines. For purposes of comparison, the specifications of widely used standard lamp system were ranged against the TCS600 system. The table below summarizes the results of the comparison. For Caf Standard TL'D system TCS600 Tl5 System Saving Load (kW) 4.608 1.26 73% Power (kWhrs/day) 55.296 15.12 73% A 73% savings in energy consumption is realized. For the lighting system layout, the following table summarizes the energy performance for the sections of the store. The computations were based on the power requirement of the lighting fixtures. Energy Performance Gallery Kitchen Caf Circulation Total Area (m^2) 244.16 46.24 134.56 154.5 579.46 Illuminance Level (lx) 400 400 400 300 / Load (kW) 2.171 0.504 1.26 1.089 5.024 Power/Day (kWhrs/day) 26.052 6.048 15.12 13.068 60.288 Power/Year (kWhrs/year) 9170.304 2128.896 5322.24 4599.936 21221.376 Ratio of Required Illuminance 0.875 0.32 0.875 1 / Energy Savings/day (10hrs sunlight) (kWhrs/day) 18.99625 1.93536 11.025 10.89 42.84661 Energy Savings/Year (10hrs sunlight) (kWhrs/Year) 6686.68 681.247 3880.8 3833.28 15082.007 Net Power/Year (kWhrs/year) 2483.624 1447.649 1441.44 766.656 6139.369 Net Power/Year/m^2 (kWhrs/year/m^2) 10.17 31.31 10.71 4.96 10.59 Percentage Savings for Daylight Utilisation 73% 32% 73% 83% 71% This table considers energy savings not only that of a low energy artificial lighting but also that of the daylight utilization related savings. It can be seen that the overall power requirement per year per unit area is 10.59 kWhrs/year/m2 which is very low. This translates to thousands of pounds in savings. Conclusion Thru the design example, one can is given a glimpse of how sustainable design can greatly improve not only the environmental friendliness of the business environment but also its financial health. Thru the seemingly simple replacement of bulbs with low energy types do give rise to benefits not only for the company but the whole society as well. References Energy Manager (1999). Energy Management. Retrieved Nov. 19,2006 from www.energymanager.com Greene, Richard (1999). Sustainable Energy Times: Energy Efficient Lighting. Retrieved Nov. 18,2006 from www.maxilight.com International Energy Agency (2006). Light's Labour's Lost: Policies for Energy Efficient Lighting. Retrieved Nov. 19, 2006 from www.iea.com Otto, Beatrice (2006). About Sustainability: The Business Side. Retrieved Nov. 18, 2006 from www.designcouncil.com Philips Industry (2004). Sustainability Report 2004. Retrieved Nov 19,2006 from www.philips.com Sustainable Development International Corporation (2006). Energy-Efficiency, Remodeling, & Lighting Tips. Retrieved Nov 18, 2006 from sdic.com Sustainable Sourcebook (2006). Sustainable Lighting. Retrieved Nov 19, 2006 from www.sustainablesourcebook.com The Sustainable Construction Task Group (2003). The UK Construction Industry 2000-2003. www.uk.gov.construction/sustainable.html Turpin, Joanna (2004). Sustainable Design. Retrieved Nov. 18, 2006 from syskahenessygroup.com Read More