Smart meters perform the following:
– two-way communications
– recording of interval data on energy usage
– delivery of data to the utility at least daily,
– disconnect switch
– power quality sensing for voltage
– A two-way communications module to talk to smart thermostats, in-home displays, smart appliances and smart equipment in customer homes and businesses.

These features empower consumers with time-based pricing options, such as Peak Time Rebates and Time-of-Use prices, and detailed energy usage, cost, and carbon information, including monthly usage and bill to date. These features also enable utilities to manage better their line voltage and line losses.

On the other hand, Smart Grids start by automating meters and continue with automating the power delivery system. The latter means adding automated sensors and devices on power lines and in substations (the transmission and distribution grid). This automation allows for remote monitoring and control of the grid, more efficient operations, greater reliability through automatic restoration after outages (“self-healing”), and other benefits.

The term “Smart Grid,” also refers to the wires, transformers, and other devices on the power delivery side.

Energy performance of white LED products continues to improve rapidly. DOE’s long-term research and development goal calls for white-light LEDs producing 160 lumens per watt in cost-effective, market-ready systems by 2025. This chart shows typical luminous efficacies for traditional and LED sources, including ballast losses as applicable.

One of the defining features of LEDs is that they emit light in a specific direction. Since directional lighting reduces the need for reflectors and diffusers that can trap light, well-designed LED fixtures can deliver light efficiently to the intended location. In contrast, fluorescent and “bulb” shaped incandescent lamps emit light in all directions; much of the light produced by the lamp is lost within the fixture, reabsorbed by the lamp, or escapes from the fixture in a direction that is not useful for the intended application. For many fixture types, including recessed downlights, troffers, and undercabinet fixtures, it is not uncommon for 40 to 50% of the total light output of fluorescent and incandescent lamps to be lost before it exits the fixture.

Unlike incandescent and fluorescent lamps, LEDs are not inherently white light sources. Instead, LEDs emit nearly monochromatic light, making them highly efficient for colored light applications such as traffic lights and exit signs. However, to be used as a general light source, white light is needed. White light can be achieved with LEDs in two main ways:

Phosphor conversion, in which a phosphor is used on or near the LED to emit white light; and
RGB systems, in which light from multiple monochromatic LEDs (red, green, and blue) is mixed, resulting in white light.

The number of white light LED products available on the market continues to grow, with new generations of devices becoming available about every four to six months.

A whole-house systems approach considers the interaction between you, your building site, your climate, and these other elements or components of your home:

Appliances and home electronics
Insulation and air sealing
Lighting and daylighting
Space heating and cooling
Water heating
Windows, doors, and skylights.

Builders and designers who use this approach recognize that the features of one component in the house can greatly affect other components, which ultimately affects the overall energy efficiency of the house.

These are some benefits of using a whole-house systems approach:

Reduced utility and maintenance costs
Increased comfort
Reduced noise
A healthier and safer indoor environment
Improved building durability.

You can use the whole-house systems approach with any home design. Using this approach, you also might consider designing a home that generates its own electricity.

Have you ever cut a boiled egg in half? The egg is similar to how the earth looks like inside. The yellow yolk of the egg is like the core of the earth. The white part is the mantle of the earth. And the thin shell of the egg, that would have surrounded the boiled egg if you didn’t peel it off, is like the earth’s crust.

Below the crust of the earth, the top layer of the mantle is a hot liquid rock called magma. The crust of the earth floats on this liquid magma mantle. When magma breaks through the surface of the earth in a volcano, it is called lava.
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For every 100 meters you go below ground, the temperature of the rock increases about 3 degrees Celsius. Or for every 328 feet below ground, the temperature increases 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. So, if you went about 10,000 feet below ground, the temperature of the rock would be hot enough to boil water.

Deep under the surface, water sometimes makes its way close to the hot rock and turns into boiling hot water or into steam. The hot water can reach temperatures of more than 300 degrees Fahrenheit (148 degrees Celsius). This is hotter than boiling water (212 degrees F / 100 degrees C). It doesn’t turn into steam because it is not in contact with the air.
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When this hot water comes up through a crack in the earth, we call it a hot spring. Or, it sometimes explodes into the air as a geyser.

In other places around the world, people used hot springs for rest and relaxation. The ancient Romans built elaborate buildings to enjoy hot baths, and the Japanese have enjoyed natural hot springs for centuries.

Hot water or steam from below ground can also be used to make electricity in a geothermal power plant.

In California, there are 14 areas where geothermal energy is used to make electricity.

Some of the areas have so much steam and hot water that it can be used to generate electricity. Holes are drilled into the ground and pipes lowered into the hot water, like a drinking straw in a soda. The hot steam or water comes up through these pipes from below ground.

A geothermal power plant is like in a regular power plant except that no fuel is burned to heat water into steam. The steam or hot water in a geothermal power plant is heated by the earth. It goes into a special turbine. The turbine blades spin and the shaft from the turbine is connected to a generator to make electricity. The steam then gets cooled off in a cooling tower.

The white “smoke” rising from the plants is steam given off in the cooling process. The cooled water can then be pumped back below ground to be reheated by the earth.

The hot water flows into turbine and out of the turbine. The turn turns the generator, and the electricity goes out to the transformer and then to the huge transmission wires that link the power plants to our homes, school and businesses.

Just as wearing light-colored clothing can help keep you cool on a sunny day, cool roofs use solar-reflective surfaces to maintain lower roof temperatures. Standard or dark roofs can reach temperatures of 150°F or more in the summer sun. A cool roof under the same conditions could stay more than 50°F cooler.

Benefits of Cool Roofs

In addition to keeping a roof cooler, a cool roof can benefit a building and its occupants in several ways:

Reduce energy bills by decreasing air conditioning needs
Improve indoor comfort for spaces that are not air conditioned
Decrease roof operating temperature, which may extend roof service life.

Beyond the building itself, cool roofs can also benefit the environment especially when many buildings in a community have them. Cool roofs can:

Reduce local air temperatures (sometimes referred to as the urban heat island effect)
Lower peak electricity demand, which can help prevent power outages
Reduce power plant emissions, including carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, and mercury, by reducing cooling energy use in buildings.

Passive solar homes range from those heated almost entirely by the sun to those with south-facing windows that provide some fraction of the heating load. The difference between a passive solar home and a conventional home is design. The key is designing a passive solar home to best take advantage of your local climate.

You can apply passive solar design techniques most easily when designing a new home. However, existing buildings can be adapted or “retrofitted” to passively collect and store solar heat.

To design a completely passive solar home, you need to incorporate what are considered the five elements of passive solar design. Other design elements include:

Window location and glazing type
Insulation and air sealing
Auxiliary heating and cooling systems, if needed.

These design elements can be applied using one or more of the following passive solar design techniques:

Direct gain
Indirect gain (Trombe wall)
Isolated gain (Sunspace).

When incorporating these design elements and techniques, you want to design for summer comfort, not just for winter heating.

Your home’s landscaping can also be incorporated into your passive solar design.

New data tables on existing commercial building energy benchmarks were added to their relevant sections. New data tables were also developed covering federal efficiency standards for various products. You will also find updated
market transformation data from the ENERGY STAR program and the U.S. Green Building Council.

Click here for the data book

Within the United States, buildings represent more than 50 percent of the nation’s
wealth. In 1993, new construction and renovation activity amounted to approximately
$800 billion, representing 13 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and
employed ten million people.

The resources required to create, operate, and replenish this
level of infrastructure and income are enormous, and are diminishing. To remain competitive and continue to expand and produce profits in the future, the building industry
knows it must address the environmental and economic consequences of its actions.
That recognition is leading to changes in the way the building industry and building
owners approach the design, construction, and operation of structures. With the leadership of diverse groups in the public and private sectors, the building industry is moving
toward a new value in its work: that of environmental performance.

The industry’s growing sustainability ethic is based on the principles of resource efficiency, health, and productivity. Realization of these principles involves an integrated, multidisciplinary approach—one in which a building project and its components are viewed
on a full life-cycle basis. This “cradle-to-cradle” approach, known as “green” or “sustainable” building, considers a building’s total economic and environmental impact and performance, from material extraction and product manufacture to product transportation
building design and construction, operations and maintenance, and building reuse or
disposal. Ultimately, adoption of sustainable building practices will lead to a shift in the
building industry, with sustainability thoroughly embedded in its practice, products,
standards, codes, and regulations.
Understanding the specifics of sustainable building and determining effective sustainable
practices can be confusing. Local governments and private industry often do not have
the resources to perform the necessary research to assemble information on sustainable
practices, assuming such information is readily available.
The Sustainable Building Technical Manual was written to fill that void. In its pages,
noted private practitioners and local government experts extract, consolidate, and prioritize—from their own experience and expertise—the scattered and growing volume of
information pertaining to sustainable buildings. The manual’s primary intent is to provide public and private building industry professionals with suggested practices across
the full cycle of a building project, from site planning to building design, construction,
and operations.
We hope that you will find this technical manual a useful and vital resource in advancing your organization’s adoption and daily practice of sustainable building principles—
a necessary and important step toward recognizing the Earth’s finite carrying capacity
and addressing the depletion of its natural resources.

Produced by Public Technology Inc. n US Green Building Council
Sponsored by U.S. Department of Energy n U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Click here for complete manual.