subject: Can Electronics Help You ‘Green' Your Building? [print this page] Can Electronics Help You Green' Your Building?
Joe and Kimberly Hageman enjoy incredible views of Narragansett Bay and the Newport Bridge from their home. They also enjoy technology. They built the Green
Life Smart Life' (GLSL) model house to convince themselves that a techie life-style and a green home could co-exist. What they realised is that technology is not only capable of co-existing but also enhancing a green lifestyle.
Lower energy bills, longer life for devices, healthier lifestyle for you and distanced doom for Earththe benefits of green' buildings are aplenty. And, technology lends an able hand in achieving this end
The team that designed the house reviewed every electronic device in the house in terms of annual wattage, load requirements and integration with other subsystems. The home was structurally wired for state-of-the-art whole-house video, music, lighting, security and Internet. Using a centralised entertain-ment equipment room, they reduced
the wiring needs by over 50 per cent. The wiring system received platinum rating from the Consumer Electronics Association's TechHome Rating Sys-tem. The design was also submitted to the US Green Building Council for consideration as a LEED-H Innovation & Design point for Green Wiring.
GLSL is all you could dream about in terms of technology: overall home control, energy management and en-tertainment. They used the Control4 operating system to consolidate and automate lighting, heating, ventilat-ing, air-conditioning (HVAC), secu-rity, climate control, etc. The Control4 platform uses a ZigBee-enabled device to bridge data from the utility meter to the home control system.
Their energy management solution enables them to power-down high-en-ergy-consuming appliances when they aren't in use and schedule down-times for maximum efficiency. It also has single-button trigger solutions for easy programming of sequenced power on and off scenarios throughout the home, including a green' mode. Add to this a communication system to monitor feedback from all electricity loads in the house with real-time analysis of usage and savings; occupancy, tem-perature, magnetic and timed sensors; as well as a self-activated away' mode setting that takes over when there is nobody in the house
One of the key features of this home is the Lutron HomeWorks lighting con-trol system that is programmed to in-clude a high-end trim of 85 per cent for every connected light in the house, and features automatic control of motion and occupancy sensors. The occupants manage their all-home music' via the
NuVo Essentia E6Gthe first and cur-rently only whole-home audio system with an Energy Star rating.In addition, the house has a zillion enviable tech features including auto-mated locks and flat panels mounted with components made of recycled ma-terials.
