The Internet as a New Tool for Implementing Energy Efficient Lighting

T hi s paper presen ts ex a mp l es of how the Internet is being used to implement energy-efficient lighting, and discusses problems that remain to be resolved. The global Internet is fast becoming one of the most important energy efficiency information resources. Used since the 1960s by a small number of government and academic institutions, recent developments in networking technology and software have attracted as many as 70 million users, including lighting and energy-related groups such as utilities, buildings professionals, and a wide variety of private companies. The Internet’s multimedia-based World Wide Web represents a particularly important innovation by simultaneously offering access to text, searchable databases, photographs, sound recordings, interactive calculations, and video images. I N T R O D U C T I O N The mouse normally isn't considered to be the fastest creature on Earth, but “pointing-and-clicking” a computer mouse along the information super-highway mobilizes resources on energy-efficient lighting faster than any other means available. Since the lack of information is commonly cited as one of the major barriers to improve energy efficiency, the emergence of the Internet provides an important new tool (Mills 1996). With the Internet, in a matter of minutes one can accomplish such diverse tasks as viewing documents from the US EPA on how to participate in the Green Lights Program, checking the latest stock prices for OsramSylvania, searching a detailed database of residential compact fluorescent fixtures, reviewing an up-to-date list of publications from the Lighting Research Center, investi gating Ontario Hydro`s lighting programs, analyzing the latest U.S. electronic ballast sales data, sending a question about daylighting controls to 400 expert members of an international discussion group on lighting, downloading new lighting design software, calculating the electricity used for lighting in a specific home, registering for the Right Light conference, or reading the latest lighting jokes. Existing and emerging applications of the Internet and the World Wide Web promise to make the Internet an even more useful tool for implementing energy efficient lighting. Following are six major examples: 1. Communications 2. Posting Text and Graphical Information 3. Document Retrieval and Software Downloading 4. Dynamic Databases 5. Remote Monitoring, Diagnostics, and Data Visualization 6. Interactivity and On-line Tools THE INTERNET EXPLOSION The global Internet is fast becoming the number-one energy efficiency information resource. Used since the 1960s by a small number of government and academic institutions, recent developments in networking technology and software have attracted millions of users, including energyrelated groups such as utilities, buildings professionals, and a wide variety of private companies. The advent of the Internet’s multimedia-based World Wide Web represented a particularly important innovation by simultaneously offering access to text, searchable databases, photographs, sound recordings, interactive calculations, and video images. It also brought new degrees of user-friendliness to the Internet. So-called “browser” software allows users to explore the Internet much more easily than was the case in the past. As measured by number of “hosts”, about 16 million computer servers were providing 80 million web pages of content onto the Internet as of January 1997, vs. only 2 million in January 1994, and the number is doubling annually (General Magic 1997; San Jose Mercury News 1997).1) Approximately 85,000 new domain names are being added each month (WWW 1997a). These span nearly 200 countries at all levels of economic development (Figure 1) (Doyle 19 97). The number of users globally—estimated at 71 million by early 1997—has been doubling every year (Doyle 1997; WWW 1997b). In the US, 14% of all households were using the Internet as of late 1996. According to an international survey of 15,000 Internet users in late 1996, the demographic trend is towards a slightly older user group, an increasing share of female users, and a significant displacement of television viewing time by Internet usage time (Georgia Institute of Technology 1997). For those interested in more details, the Internet Society compiles extensive information on the history and current status of the Internet (Internet Society 1997). A history of the Internet is offered by Leiner et al. (1997). The Internet is becoming an increasingly powerful communications tool. It is less expensive and often more efficient and reliable compared with conventional modes of communication. Information is often available over the Internet before it is published in hardcopy. By using ”hypertext”, documents can be extensively and conveniently linked to other documents, even if the linked document happens to be stored in a computer on the other side of the world. SIX LANES OF THE INFORMATION SUPER-HIGHWAY Listed below are six major ways in which the Web can be used to assist in the implementation of energy-efficient lighting. Communications: A wealth of information can be found on web pages, but in addition to this is the possibility for the communication and the exchange of ideas among individuals at all corners of the Earth far easier and more affordable than ever before. E-mail, the most familiar use of the Internet, is a wellknown tool for day-to-day correspondence among individuals. In fact, at least 14 of the total 71 million users go on-line only for email (Doyle 1997). Thousands of topical e-mail discussion groups have emerged, including groups focused on utility issues, lighting, and HVAC. Messages sent by a given subscriber (typically no charge) reach all other subscribers, and thus a large number of people can participate in a discussion — kind of like a virtual conference call. The NIST lighting discussion group, for example, has about 400 members worldwide (NIST 1997). The Lighting Re s e a r ch Center offers a web-based search engine to facilitate access to 4,200 archived conversationsfrom the N IST group (LRC 1997). ”Chat rooms” are also being used to enable real-time discussions, as exemplified 30 MILLS, VOLUME 1, RIGHT LIGHT 4, 1997 Figure 1. The use of the Internet is growing rapidly, even in lessdeveloped countries. Shown here are trends in the growth in numbers of hosts for two-letter domains in selected countries. [http://www.genmagic.com/Internet/Trends/slide-13.html] Figure 2. IAEEL’s Lighting Crossroads. The first category (Businesses, Products & Services) has been selected, from which the visitor can currently link to 39 related sites, and the other Lighting Crossroads categories are shown at the top of the results page. [http://eff.nutek.se/IAEEL/IAEEL/LXR/LXR.html] by the five Internet-wide chats that have been held on power quality (lighting and non-lighting issues). One of the real advantages of discussion groups is the access they provide for people from developing countries, where alternative forms of communication are especially difficult or expensive. One of the real disadvantages is the quantity of correspondence that can quickly build up -pick the groups you subscribe to carefully! More advanced Internet-based communications features such as video-based communications make it possible (and affordable) for efficiency experts from disparate places around the world to participate in virtual design sessions at virtually no cost aside from the time required for the interaction. The Internet is also regularly used as an efficient aid to collaborative writing projects, especially where authors are geographically separated. Posting Text and Graphical Information: We have identified and organized over 100 Web sites having to do with energy-efficient lighting, now available via the IAEEL Website’s Lighting Crossroads index (IAEEL 1997). The general categories shown in Figure 2 gives an idea of the lighting-related information available via the Internet. The breadth of information is enormous, and includes lighting product literature, trade organization information, design tools, newsletters, and market statistics. The pervasive nature of the Internet, combined with the low cost of having a presence there, has great significance for the efficient lighting community. It allows people who would otherwise be geographically isolated to have access to useful information, and it helps small firms who have products or services to sell gain a level of visibility to consumers that was formerly the exclusive domain of major companies with large advertising budgets. Document Retrieval and Software Downloading: More and more publications are being posted on the Internet, and many libraries are systematically cataloging links to this information. Similarly, databases of published literature (books, articles, newspapers, etc.) are increasingly searchable via the Internet. These trends all apply to the particular case of lighting. Many information products now exist only in Internet form (i.e. not in hardcopy). The Internet can be used as a way to distribute large documents such as software or detailed graphics. For example, the R a d i a n ce and Superlite software can be downloaded from their developers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Internet sites can house regularly changing information related to software tools so that it does not get out of date (as it would if published in static form on-disk). For example, an international library of imagery at the site allows users from many countries to easily view examples of R a d i a n ce renderings produced by colleagues from other countries (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 1997). Dynamic Databases: The Web can be used to provide s e a r chable databases of energy-efficient products. Fo r example, the powerful inter.Light databases (Figure 3) allow users to search for specific efficient-lighting products (e.g. lamps, ballasts, fixtures, controls) (inter.Light 1997). Dynamic databases allow for customized searches to meet the needs of specific users. The Lighting Research Center RIGHT LIGHT 4, 1997 VOLUME 1, MILLS 31 Figure 3 a-c. inter.Light, an example of dynamic searchable databases of lighting products. As shown in the three-part figure, a sequence of three screens brings the user to a choice of specific CFL products, which can be still further narrowed by limiting the remainder of the search to a specific wattage [http://lightlink.com/dir/index.html]