Midwest Environmental Advocates’ Green Office Design Features

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Goal: Reduce Energy Consumption and Contribution to Global Warming

Use 99% natural daylighting to illuminate work spaces during the day
"Cool Daylighting" is a low or no cost design technique that maximizes sunlight to illuminate spaces. It reduces or eliminates the need for electric lighting and reduces use of air conditioners.

We designed our office layout for maximum use of daylighting. We cut windows between existing rooms and used an open office design with divider walls that allows light to pass between individual office spaces. Except on one rainy day in fall, we have completely eliminated the need to use electric lights to illuminate work spaces during the day.

For assistance in including "cool daylighting" into your building or renovation design, contact:

Daylighting Collaborative
Abby Vogen
595 Science Drive
Madison, WI 53711
800-864-6254
daylighting@ecw.org

Solar water tubes to moderate office temperature
We are using Sun-Lite Thermal Storage Tubes in our West-facing windows to provide thermal mass in order to help moderate indoor temperatures and reduce our heating and cooling usage. These seven cylindrical tubes contain water that captures and stores thermal energy.

For more information about Thermal Storage Tubes and other solar products, go to www.solar-components.com. Cellular shades to insulate windows while allowing sunlight
Windows can improve lighting, but they can also be a deficit in an office due to the energy lost through the glass. There are super windows with excellent insulating qualities. However, in our existing building, it did not make economic sense for us to replace all of our windows. As a middle ground, we are using cellular/honeycomb shades. These shades are known for their energy efficiency because they trap air in between the cells of the shade and prevent heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer.

Cellular/honeycomb shades come in single cell, double cell, and triple cell forms. The triple cell offers the most insulation and light blockage. We are lighting the entire office with sunlight during the day so we needed to use a single cell shades in order to maximize the natural light that would still enter the space even with the solar protection of the shade.

Compact fluorescent bulbs throughout office
Substituting compact fluorescent light bulbs for incandescent light bulbs is one of the most cost effective things you can do to reduce energy consumption and global warming. We purchased SunPro Ultra Compact Fluorescent bulbs for our office. These particular bulbs are designed to simulate natural daylight. We chose the 20 watt bulbs, which are equivalent to 100 watt incandescent bulbs. The rated life for these bulbs is 10,000 hours and they last 10 to 13 times longer than standard incandescent bulbs.

You can purchase compact fluorescent bulbs many places. One source is Natural Lighting www.naturallighting.com.

Tankless electric water heater
When we moved into our office it contained an electric water heater that ran constantly to heat 80 gallons of water. The heater was inefficient for an office where hot water usage is very limited. We replaced it with a tankless electric water heater that only uses electricity at the point of use when hot water is needed.

For more information about tankless water heaters, contact Stiebel Eltron at www.stiebel-eltron-usa.com.