The stairwell lights in College Nine and Ten dorm buildings are constantly lit with circline fixtures and T8 fixtures, consuming almost 83% more energy than needed. Currently, College Nine and Ten stairwells combined are lit with one hundred and nine 58W circline fixtures and forty-seven 59W T8 lamp fixtures. The Alliance to Save Energy’s Green Campus Program at the University of California Santa Cruz proposes to retrofit the current circline fixtures and T8 fixtures with bi-level occupancy sensor fixtures. More specifically, bi-level lighting has two different levels of light output from a fixture and an occupancy sensor, which determines when an area is occupied and when it is empty. The new fixtures will decrease the amount of energy the lamps consume through the use of an occupancy sensor that will dim the light.

We propose the existing circline fixture be replaced by LaMar’s MT surface mount series, which has two 26 Watt compact fluorescent lamps. The current T8 fixture will be replaced by LaMar Voyager which is a two lamp 59 Watt T8 fluorescent fixture. When the stairwell is unoccupied, the circline fixtures lighting will be reduced to 3% of the normal light output and the T8 fixture will decrease to 5%. This project will increase energy efficiency in the dorms by directly reducing electricity consumption. The reduction of energy, calculated in kilowatt hours, can be expressed as a reduction of overall greenhouse gas emissions reduction from the production of electricity.

Throughout UCSC campus housing, there are multiple opportunities for bi-level lighting retrofits to be implemented in stairwells. Our goal for the retrofitting of College 9 and 10 is to inspire the other colleges to follow our example project, and capitalize on significant energy savings.