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SERDP and ESTCP have launched a webinar series to promote the transfer of innovative, cost-effective and sustainable solutions developed through projects funded in five program areas. The webinar series targets Department of Defense and Department of Energy practitioners, the regulatory community and environmental researchers with the goal of providing cutting edge and practical information that is easily accessible at no cost.

Bi-Level Demand Sensitive LED Street Lighting Systems by Dr. Saifur Rahman

This presentation will cover detailed engineering design and implementation of a demand-sensitive LED street lighting system deployed as a retrofit to an existing system at the NAVFAC Washington (NFW) facility in Carderock, Maryland. The technology is based on a solid state lighting technology where light-emitting diode (LED) luminaires were substituted for existing High Pressure Sodium (HPS) street lighting units, and where an intelligent lighting control system was deployed. This allowed power consumption monitoring, as well as control and failure identification of each light fixture. Field measurements indicated an average annual electricity savings and carbon footprint reduction of 75% as compared to the existing streetlight systems. The new LED-based system is expected to pay back its investment within 6 years using an electricity cost of US $0.1183/kWh. This gives a savings-to-investment (SIR) ratio of 2.15 and an adjusted internal rate of return (AIRR) of 9.77%. Overall, the project has successfully demonstrated how existing street lighting installations can be made more efficient using current state-of-the-art technologies in the design and operation of the lighting control systems. This presentation will also discuss implementation issues and field experience that can help with the similar installations throughout the United States.

Dynamic Exterior Lighting for Energy and Cost Savings by Dr. Satyen Mukherjee

The objective of this ESTCP-funded project was to quantify the energy, environmental, and economic benefits of advanced exterior lighting control technologies at a U.S. Army installation in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Three complementary systems based on scalable control and communication technologies were demonstrated, each targeting different exterior lighting applications (e.g., street lighting, parking lots, and vehicle maintenance areas) and offering different levels of functionality, energy, and maintenance cost savings.

Dynadimmer for parking lots is a stand-alone solution that allows sites to control the amount of light delivered based on customized time schedules. Starsense/CityTouch for roadways is a fully networked system supporting remote management, monitoring, diagnostics and adaptive light level control. Each Starsense luminaire has a radio frequency (RF) module and controller, and is linked to a segment controller that provides wireless connectivity to a remote management station. Light on Demand (LOD), for area lighting, consists of sensing and RF modules that can be integrated with exterior luminaires to sense movement local to the luminaire, as well as adjust light levels in order to provide light when and where needed.

The system solutions were selected to suit the unique characteristics of the target DoD applications and provided energy and cost savings of 60 to 90% while improving the illuminance levels and uniformity compared to the pre-retrofit HPS systems.

Dr. Saifur Rahman is the founding director of the Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech where he is the Joseph R. Loring Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also directs the Center for Energy and the Global Environment. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and an IEEE Millennium Medal winner. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the IEEE Electrification Magazine and the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy Journal. He served as a vice president of the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) from 2009 to 2013, and is currently serving as a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology. In 2006, Dr. Rahman served on the IEEE Board of Directors as Vice President for publications. He also served as the chair of the U.S. National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for International Science and Engineering from 2010 to 2013. Dr. Rahman is a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE PES on topics such as smart grid, energy efficiency, renewable energy, demand response, distributed generation and critical infrastructure protection in over 30 countries on all six continents.

Dr. Satyen Mukherjee was Chief Scientist, Research Fellow, and Senior Director at Philips Research North America, after serving as the managing director of Philips Research North America and research department head of Microelectronic Devices, Circuits and Systems. Dr. Mukherjee’s current areas of interest include lighting controls systems and building-wide energy management systems, including HVAC and appliances. He has delivered numerous presentations in these areas at national and international conferences. He has published extensively in journals, written book chapters, and edited a book on ambient intelligence. He holds numerous patents including the original patent on flash memory cell. He has initiated research collaborations with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories to address challenges in integrated controls and energy simulation in buildings. Dr. Mukherjee has served as the Principal Investigator for two DoD-funded demonstration projects on indoor and outdoor lighting systems. He was the chairman of the board of directors for the Continental Automated Building Association (CABA) from 2010 until 2015. Dr. Mukherjee obtained his Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in 1976, where he won the President of India Gold Medal for excellence in engineering. In 1981, Dr. Mukherjee obtained his Ph.D. from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.