Harvard’s First Exclusively LED Lab!

If all goes well, Stuart McNeil, building manager for the Department of Physics, will be well into retirement by the time someone has to change the light bulbs he has just installed in Professor Jene Golovchenko’s biophysics lab.

The lights he has installed are energy-sipping LEDs that are expected to last through 50,000 hours of use–an astounding 24 years at 8 hours per day, 5 days per week. The lights will also significantly cut energy use relative to the lighting that existed in the space prior to the renovation.

Light brightness requirements in laboratories are typically much higher than in offices and residences, due to the sensitivity of the work conducted in these spaces, so it’s crucial that the technology meet high standards. The Golovchenko lab will find that its new panels function as well as standard lab lighting, without any flicker or delay in start-up.

Stuart does not simply wait for renovations and retrofit opportunities to save energy in his buildings. He watches his building automation system like a hawk, ensuring that the ventilation, exhaust, and lighting is well-matched to the current and evolving space usage. He has even offered to check up on the building automation systems of his peer building managers, and has challenged his peers to find improvements in his own buildings that he has not yet implemented.

Stuart is never at a loss for innovative conservation ideas. One of his current plans is to get annual course enrollment data, so that he can provide the correct amount of ventilation to match the number of people predicted to be in each lecture hall. He has also worked to provide scrap metal recycling for the machine shop in his building, identifying a better way to deal with the valuable waste materials that come out of this space.

Due to Stuart’s diligence, Jefferson and Lyman Labs have energy use profiles that are more similar to office buildings than to lab spaces, which are notorious high-intensity energy users. Luckily for Harvard, he is just one of dozens of highly skilled and inventive building managers on campus who are paving the road for successful implementation of our greenhouse gas reduction goal.