Lighting with No Watt Left Behind

Lighting consumes a large fraction of the electrical energy used in the U.S. This energy is wasted when a facility is unoccupied or when large portions of a facility are illuminated when not being used by persons requiring the illumination. Although automatic dimming and turn-on/turn-off systems have been created, they require additional electronics, can be expensive, and perform unsatisfactorily if the occupants are not moving. This project will design and build lighting systems that can inherently detect occupants in their vicinity and provide lighting only when required by the occupants. The systems will use existing illumination fixtures and will not require external monitoring technology. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The use of this technology should save substantial energy and money, estimated at 21 TBtu or about $530 million. As an added benefit, greenhouse gases will not be produced in the generation of wasted energy.