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Solar (and efficient) Lighting

If used correctly solar day lighting can provide free, high quality lighting, and do it with less heat generation inside the house than conventional electric lighting.

Don't underestimate the value of solar lighting and efficient lighting -- using daylight coupled with efficient electric lights could save a typical home over $100 a year in electricity and more than one of CO2 emissions.

And, good solar lighting is a joy to work in.

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Solar Daylighting
Efficient Lighting

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Solar Lighting
Designing with Lighting Chris Herman How to get articles from Home Power ...	Home Power Article, Issue 109 Good article on using natural daylighting in homes. Good guidance on how to get natural lighting while avoiding overheating.
IBACOS Light Guide http://www.ibacos.com/hpl5.html	A fairly useful guide for designing and choosing high performance lighting. The "Room-by-room" and "Specifications of Fixtures" sections have some pretty helpful information on what available and how to design good lighting.
SunCatcher -- Solar Lighting and Ventilation http://www.sunpipe.co.uk/suncatcher/ And a small version: http://www.sola-vent.com/	An interesting new product that provides both solar daylighting and ventilation.
Sunshine From a Tube Dan Chiras Mother Earth News http://www.motherearthnews.com	Mother Earth News Article, Issue 202 Good overview of using tubular skylights to bring sunlight into a room.
SunPipe http://www.sunpipe.co.uk/sunpipe/ SolaTube http://www.solatube.com	Two of many commercial products that "pipe" sun light down through a reflective tube to provide interior lighting.
Light Shelves www.energybooks.com/pdf/10001005.pdf	The article explains how light shelves work and provides some design information.
Sun, Wind & Light, 2nd Edition G.Z. Brown and Mark DeKay	An architectural design strategies book with a number of practical day lighting techniques that use direct or reflected sunlight (it also provides many other solar heating and cooling design strategies). Quantitative design and sizing methods are provided for each day lighting technique. Pretty easy reading for an architecture book.
Garage/Workshop Sunspace Gary There is just nothing like natural lighting from large windows -- it totally transforms the space.	This is my very simple and inexpensive way to both light and heat your dark cave of a garage or workshop. I have used this scheme for more than a year now, and would never be without it again.
Himawari Daylight Collector Daylight Collector	Device to collect sunlight with a set of Fresnel lens, and direct the collected light to any part of a building. Photos for many example uses provided.
Heliostats for Lighting Indoor and Outdoor Spaces http://archrecord.construction.com	Some not very detailed but interesting descriptions of heliostat based lighting systems.
Sunlight Direct http://www.sunlight-direct.com/technical.html	Producer of solar lights that use fiber optics for transmission of light. The system uses a tracking solar dish to collect light and fiber optics to distribute light in the building. Does not look inexpensive.
Build A Simple Solar Powered Outdoor Light, Jeffery Yago, Backwoods Magazine www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yago92.html	Backwoods Magazine Article on building a solar PV powered "street light".
Heliostat Lighting Commercial Products: Heliotrack http://www.heliotrack.com/ EGIS http://www.egis-rotor.de/Helio_us.html Some ideas for home built heliostats from Duane at RedRok.com: http://www.redrok.com/heliolighting.htm	A heliostat is a mirror that reflects light onto a fixed target by tracking the sun. The target can be a window on the north, east, or west side of the house. The result is great solar daylighting for normally dark rooms. If the mirror was large enough, some useful heat could be provided as well.
The ultimate in Heliostat Lighting Mirror gives Italian Village Its Place in the Sun http://www.gizmowatch.com news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6189371.stm#map	"ROME (Reuters) - A village in the Italian Alps is finally basking in winter sunlight thanks to a giant mirror installed on a mountain top to reflect the sun's rays into the main square." They use a heliostat to reflect sun into the town square. I've thought about doing this (on a much smaller scale) to reflect light into my east facing living room windows.
Elights Link List http://www.elights.com/elights/lightinglinks.html	Very extensive set of lighting links.
Efficient Lighting
Efficient Lighting EERE on Types of Lighting http://www.eere.energy.gov This is our families estimated saving in energy and GHG's for going to CFL's: http://www.builditsolar.com (A 224% return on investment, and 1 TON of CO2 per year)	It is a just plain no-brainer to use fluorescents and compact fluorescents. They are far more efficient, last much much longer, and will save you a ton of money and greenhouse gas emissions. Most utility companies offer some form of rebate program for buying CFL's -- making it even more of a no-brainer!
LED Holiday Lights Almost all of the usual places that sell holiday lights now sell the LED lights. Prices still vary a lot. We got ours a Costco for about $10 per string.	LED holiday lights are safer (no heat), last a very long time, and look great. They also use much less energy and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The energy saving can be 90% or more. A typical 100 light LED string uses less than 4 watts! They have an expected lifetime of 20+ years. With the LED holiday light prices dropping, the payback period can be as small as a season or two (considering both lower operating cost and longer life).