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Retailers Beginning to See the Light

Incorporating lighting strategies for sustainable design

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Due to rapid advancements in LED technology, lighting is now seen as one of the easiest strategies to implement in green design and the quickest to deliver a return on investment. “Most retailers can get the money they spent on lighting back within two years,” says Ricardo Álvarez-Díaz, president of Álvarez-Díaz & Villalón in San Juan, Puerto Rico. That’s a timeframe retailers are happy to accept given that the average store design lasts five to seven years.

The newest challenge is getting retailers to embrace the use of daylighting, says Eddy Santosa, building and energy modeling lead at Seattle-based Callison. The use of daylight is not only inexpensive, but it also creates a healthy environment for employees. Its use, however, poses two obstacles for retailers: potential UV damage to merchandise and unpredictability.

“You can’t predict how daylight will look inside a space throughout the day,” Santosa says. It takes careful planning to map out how light will change throughout the day – something Santosa and his team spend hours doing. He also encourages clients to consider the use of skylights.

Daylighting is an important element in Mt. Laurel, N.J.-based TD Bank’s first net-zero energy store. The bank was designed to produce as much energy as it consumes over a one-year period. The store’s use of natural daylighting was one of many technologies used to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent compared to a traditional bank.

“Daylighting for the banks is provided by active controls that react to the amount of available sunlight through the windows, then lighting is dimmed as much as possible while still maintaining necessary light levels,” says Charles Bertuch, director of energy solutions at Bergmann Associates (Rochester, N.Y.), the firm that designed the bank.

The design of the bank’s Cypress Creek, Fla. location also takes into account the added solar heat that windows often create. Therefore, computerized energy modeling was performed to determine the optimal size and construction of windows. Automatically operated window shades are then used to reduce solar heat during peak cooling periods.

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