New parking lighting technology is paying off, Energy Dept. says

The latest lighting technology for parking areas quickly pays for itself and can reap energy savings of up to 70%, according to the U.S. Dept. of Energy.

The Department has promoted its Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign to support participants in their efforts to upgrade and install energy-efficiency equipment and lighting controls in over 540 million sf of parking facilities since 2012. That effort has translated into savings of 137 million kWh a year, or $14.79 million in electricity savings.

LED products have made the fastest inroads in outdoor applications, DOE says, with a penetration rate of 32.5% in parking garages and 26.2% in parking lots in 2016. LEEP is a collaboration between the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Building Owners and Managers Association International (BOMA), International Facility Management Association (IFMA), International Parking Institute, and the Better Buildings Alliance, with technical support from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

LEEP Campaign resources, including tools, case studies, and guidance materials designed to make it easy for facility owners and managers to adopt high-efficiency lighting and controls systems for parking facilities are available at: http://www.leepcampaign.org/

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.