Now in its tenth year, the Lighting Design Lab on Seattle's Capitol Hill educates the Northwest's lighting market about quality design and efficient technologies. Now in its tenth year, the Lighting Design Lab on Seattle's Capitol Hill educates the Northwest's lighting market about quality design and efficient technologies. Lab staff offer classes, consultations, mockups, model studies, a Web site and a technical reference library. The lighting education center is sponsored by Seattle City Light, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, Puget Sound Energy, other electric utilities, and environmental organizations. It is usually far less expensive to make efficiency improvements than build new power plants.
Lighting is a large part of the energy equation, especially in commercial buildings.
The cost of lighting, and removing the heat the lights produce in a typical office building could account for 40 percent of the utility bill. The Lighting Design Lab is often able to show how savings of 30 percent or more are possible, simply by making better choices in the marketplace. The bonus is that the choices for greater efficiency usually mean better color, lower maintenance and less flicker and glare, too. Architects, engineers, designers, building operators and even homeowners use the Lab to discover their best options for solving lighting problems. Most of the services of the Lab are free or very low cost, because of the support of their sponsors in Alaska, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.