Energy Efficiencies in Buildings to Improve Under NETL-Directed ARRA Funding

Energy efficiency seems to be the latest national trend, but at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), energy efficiency has been, is, and always will be a “hot topic.” Also known as “the ENERGY lab,” NETL focuses on the best use of America’s energy resources hand in hand with environmental responsibility and affordable costs.

On June 29, 2009, NETL’s Building and Efficiency Technologies Division within the Project Management Center (PMC) issued six funding opportunity announcements (FOAs).¹ The FOAs encourage universities and industry to develop and deploy building efficiency technologies, and are offered through DOE’s investment of $346 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. The ARRA, which became effective in February 2009, is a federal stimulus package to reduce the impact of the recession and promote economic recovery. By investing in areas such as national infrastructure and technological advancements, the Act aims to provide long-term economic benefits while helping save and create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.

After the FOA applications are submitted, Building and Efficiency Technologies Division staff will review them and make the majority of awards by the first quarter of 2010. The Division will continue providing project management support to ensure the projects come in on time and within budget, and meet their stated purpose.

	This kitchen project studied the installation and performance of LED downlights and under-cabinet lights in two “green” showcase homes at the 2008 Eugene Tour of Homes in Eugene, Oregon. Source: Courtesy of Universal Display Corporation.

Lighting Efficiency
Three of the FOAs issued by NETL address the need for more energy-efficient lighting, while the remaining three FOAs address the call for other building efficiencies, such as advanced heating and cooling systems. Energy-efficient lighting is needed because lighting makes up 7 percent of all energy consumed in the United States. Starting in 2012, new lighting standards will take effect, resulting in a 15 percent decrease in electricity use for general service fluorescent lamps and a 25 percent decrease for incandescent reflector lamps. American consumers who use the improved lamps will realize major benefits, including a total energy savings of up to $4 billion per year. The lamps will also eliminate the need for the construction of 14 new 500-megawatt power plants and avert nearly 594 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Solid-State Lighting
The lighting FOAs focus specifically on advancements in solid-state lighting (SSL), which uses semiconductors to turn electricity into light. The FOAs are divided into three SSL areas. The first lighting FOA focuses on core technology research, which develops lighting technologies, with special attention to efficiency, performance, and cost. The second FOA addresses the next step, product development. When research is completed, the innovative technologies are combined to develop or improve a product for market. The product can be either a complete lighting unit or individual components. The third FOA concerns U.S. manufacturing. In this last step of the development process, the product is made more consumer friendly by quickly adopting manufacturing improvements. In 2000, DOE established an SSL program to accelerate these advancements, and NETL manages the program’s research and development efforts.

OLED lighting panels near the ceiling and transparent OLED window lamps illuminate this room of the future, showing two potential uses of this exciting SSL technology.

The two main types of SSL lighting are light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). LEDs use a tiny inorganic semiconductor to create an intense point source of light. They are more familiar to consumers who see them at some traffic lights and in the flashing buttons on their remote controls. OLEDs are made of organic polymers and emit a soft diffuse light over a relatively large area. Consumers are less familiar with this type of SSL since it is a newer technology and not currently available for residential lighting purposes. However, DOE anticipates the first OLED product will be commercially available for general use by 2010.

 LEDs and OLEDs promise to be 10 times more efficient than incandescent lighting and will change the way we light our homes and businesses. Consumers will be happy to discover that not only will SSL products be more efficient, but with an estimated lifespan of 50,000 hours, they should also last up to 5 times longer than fluorescent bulbs, and an astounding 50 times longer than incandescent bulbs.

SSL technology offers many other attractive features over traditional sources, such as sharper color quality and better control over directing the light. An additional benefit is that SSL is also compatible with other green power generation sources. For example, solar power sources supply electricity through direct current. Since SSL products operate on direct current too, no conversion is required when making light from a solar source. This is unlike the electric grid, which supplies alternating current and requires inefficient conversion to make light with an SSL product.

Despite the leaps researchers have made and will continue to make in the SSL field, several hurdles remain. A primary challenge is helping consumers realize SSL’s cost-effectiveness and just how much lighting technology has improved over the years. Perhaps SSL does cost somewhat more than the usual fluorescent and incandescent lighting, but it has the potential to reduce lighting energy use in the United States by one-third, a considerable decrease.

LED roadway lighting brightens up the main span of the new I-35 W Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The white LEDs contrast sharply against the traditional light sources at either end of the bridge.

NETL Assists in Guaranteeing Quality Assurance
When an SSL item is placed on the market, NETL helps to ensure it lives up to the manufacturer’s claims. NETL manages the independent testing laboratories under the DOE Commercially Available LED Product Evaluation and Reporting (CALiPER) program—an impressive name with more impressive results. CALiPER supports performance testing of a large array of SSL products. After a product has undergone a series of photometric tests to measure the perceived brightness of a light to the human eye, the anonymous results are disclosed to the public. Consumers and manufacturers alike are given insight across a wide range of lighting applications, as either a product is improved or its claim is revised.

Other Building-Efficiency Technologies
SSL technology is the lighting technology for tomorrow, but it is only one important piece toward a greener energy future. The remaining three of the six FOAs issued on June 29 focus on other aspects of building efficiency, which promise to transform building design forever.

The Buildings Sector accounts for about 40% of U.S. Energy, 72% of Electricity, and 34% of Natural Gas use. Building energy costs totaled $390 billion in 2006. Source: Buildings Energy Data Book, Sept. 2008, Tables 1.1.3 1.1.6, 3.1.1, 3.3.1, 4.1.5, 5.1.2, 5.3.1

The building sector accounts for the largest percent of produced energy consumption. It uses 40 percent of our energy resources as compared to industry and transportation, which consume 32 percent and 28 percent, respectively.² The building sector also represents 40 percent of carbon emissions in the United States. Efficiency goals have been established for new construction; however, existing buildings also require considerable attention.

Two-thirds of American homes were built before 1980 and are not up to par with modern residential codes. In addition, 5 million commercial buildings—more than 74 billion square feet of floor space—need to be retrofitted and updated.

Building Technologies Program
DOE’s Building Technologies Program aims to reduce these building sector numbers by focusing on two main components. The first is research and development to innovate and integrate building technologies. The second is technology validation and introduction to the market.

Research and Development: Integration of Technologies

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	Many elements in a home can be made more efficient. By considering how these elements best work together, homeowners can realize a significant increase in energy savings and home comfort.

The first building-efficiency FOA is based on this type of advanced building systems research. It includes component-only research topics, but the major focus is on how the parts complement each other to create a complete energy efficient system. Engineers, builders, and architects will analyze and develop strategies to review the interaction of a variety of building elements, including an air-tight, heat-confining seal known as a thermal envelope, windows and doors, refrigeration, heating and cooling, solid-state lighting, and energy-efficient appliances.

Artistic Homes, a pioneer of DOE’s Building America program, completed this true zero-energy home in summer 2008. It was the one of the first homes in the country to qualify for the U.S. Department of Energy Builders Challenge, with a calculated annual energy bill of $153 of which $150 is utility service charges. Source: Artistic Homes - Albuquerque, NM [PDF]

The second FOA seeks industry teams to implement the Building America Program’s research program for new and existing homes. The Building America Program aims to develop cost-effective solutions that will reduce a home’s average energy use by 40–100 percent. Ultimately, program research will lead to net-zero energy homes, which produce as much—if not more—energy as they consume through green power generation. Research will focus on two areas of interest. One area is “Building America Teams,” which will implement the research and technical support program for both new and existing homes. The second area is “Building America Retrofit Teams,” which will focus on research and providing technical support to increase efficiency gains and reduce the cost of retrofitting existing homes.

Technology Validation and Market Introduction
The second component of the Building Technologies Program is validation of these integrated technologies and their introduction to the market. During validation, researchers must first prove that the system performs and operates as anticipated. When this phase is complete, the new product or process can be introduced to the market, particularly to those groups who will make daily use of them.

Builders are one group that will realize early on the benefits of building efficiency technologies; however, they must be trained before implementing new processes or materials. NETL’s final FOA fulfills this requirement, while addressing ARRA’s intent to create and retain jobs by offering multiple opportunities to expand work in the commercial sector. The FOA projects will develop training curricula to help create a workforce that will be well equipped to assist builders in applying the latest technologies once they are available on the market.

Schools and hospitals are two other groups that will benefit from the energy innovations being developed and transferred to market by DOE or from DOE’s programs. The EnergySmart Schools program will create healthier learning environments that provide better lighting, comfort, and air quality. High-efficiency schools can lower a school district’s operating costs by 30 percent and do not necessarily cost more than a conventionally built school. In addition, energy is one of the few expenses a school can cut without sacrificing the quality of education. As a bonus, students learn about energy conservation and efficiency and can share these practices with families and friends. 

The EnergySmart Hospitals initiative was launched by DOE in July 2008. It addresses the challenges of healthcare and energy efficiency, since hospitals are open 24 hours, 7 days a week, and cannot afford to lose power at any time. Current goals are to improve efficiency standards 20 percent in existing buildings and 30 percent in new construction, allowing hospitals to reduce both the $5 billion spent annually on energy costs and the 30 pounds of carbon emissions produced per square foot.⁴

	ENERGY STAR’s familiar label on a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL).

Ensuring All Is Well
Despite intense research and development, quality standards must be created to ensure the technologies perform well and consistently. One program that maintains such standards is ENERGY STAR, which is a federal stamp of approval that a product meets developed voluntary criteria for energy efficiency. The ENERGY STAR label is well recognized on appliances and lighting fixtures, and buildings now have the opportunity to earn the ENERGY STAR too. In addition, a national program from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. DOE called “Home Performance with ENERGY STAR” provides a comprehensive approach to improve energy efficiency and comfort for existing homes while helping to protect the environment.

Building energy codes are another method of ensuring that buildings are safer and achieve energy savings. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (ASHRAE) is calling for a significant improvement over the 2004 code for commercial buildings as current goals for 2010 include a 30 percent improvement in energy efficiency. In addition, based on the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), there is a similar push toward a 30 percent improvement for residential buildings.

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This scale helps homeowners and homebuyers determine the energy efficiency of an EnergySmart home as compared to a typical new home. As part of DOE’s Builder’s Challenge, a home must meet a minimum threshold of 70 or lower, with a net-zero rating as the ultimate goal.

The Building Technologies Program maintains regulatory approaches too. They include primary industry standards, such as those for general service fluorescents and incandescent lighting. DOE is also expanding its Appliance Standards program to evaluate additional technologies and develop test procedures that characterize today’s energy practices and resources.

The Next Step
Achieving energy efficiency is more than simply changing the way we do things; we also need to change the way we think. If consumers and markets alike accept and adapt to advanced technologies and activities, energy efficiency will not be a passing trend but a permanent pathway. NETL’s building efficiency FOAs offer the community the chance to explore life-changing ideas that could return numerous energy benefits for years to come.