 Good afternoon, Howard Wigg, Code Green, Think Tech, Hawaii. My guest today is Joan Schaefer, Business Development Manager of Sola Tube. Sola Tube is a day lighting technology, and you say, what in the world is there to talk about day lighting? You have some glass up on the roof, the sun comes through, that's all there is to it, right? Wrong. Day lighting technology is evolving almost as rapidly as other lighting efficiency technologies. More and more improvements as we learn more and more about how the sun works, and we develop more materials that can reflect and direct the sun in exactly the way we want it. So welcome to the program, Joan. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me. Joan came all the way down from Seattle, not just to be with us, but to make a lot of calls, and we'll talk about some local projects that you're getting. Sounds great. So why don't we get right into this advanced day lighting technology? We could do the first slide there. Now, let's spend some time with this. The sun rises, and it's coming at a very, very steep angle. It hits this dome thing, and then what happens? Actually, this is a dome that's actually optically selective. It works in essentially anywhere on the planet. The idea is traditional glazing methods are most efficient in the middle of the day, but successful day lighting is always illumination versus glare. And what happens is on the horizon, it's capturing low-angle light. I especially appreciate that when I live north of the 45th parallel, and it captures the low-angle light, but in the middle of the day, when there's a potential for glare, you actually want to reduce the light and potential heat gain by about 25%. So then we see the rejects overpowering some light. Absolutely, absolutely. And so you're extending your time of light or your photo period, and it becomes essentially a non-electric light fixture. And I was comparing it to PVs or photovoltaics, because we have so many of those in Hawaii, but a photovoltaic doesn't really begin to kick in until 9.45, 10.15 in the morning to produce really electricity, and then by 4 o'clock in the afternoon is really, really tapering down, but because you have a dome and these angles, I think your hours of operation providing daylight is much, much, much extended beyond... Absolutely, absolutely. So let's go to the next, oh, and yeah, this will cover it. There's a concept called uniformity also, in addition to non-glare. Absolutely. Now in the transfer zone here, what we're talking about is actually the tubing. And the tubing is essentially capturing that light that's been collected and ducting it deep into building interiors. The material is actually a polymerized acrylic. It's called spectralite infinity, but it's actually acrylic material that is bonded with a low-ecoating. The idea is you're bringing truly full-spectrum light in and actually only losing three-tenths of a percent with every light bounce. That means we can go significant different distances and it allows for going essentially over 50 feet with our commercial product that's 21 inches. Our larger 29-inch unit can actually go further than that. And one phrase you mentioned was full-spectrum. And when we deal with, well, let's back up. We, homo sapiens, have been around on this planet for about 200,000 years and it was only until about 100 years ago that we started spending a lot of time indoors thanks to Mr. Edison. About 90% of the time, as a matter of fact. Yes, I would like to think in Hawaii we spend more time outdoors and still a lot of time indoors. And our eyes are adapted over this 200,000 years of our history to daylight. And when we have artificial light, we don't accurately reflect exactly what our human eyes are developed for so that you have imperfect visual acuity. But when you're bringing the daylight in and you're not altering the color of the daylight at all, you are essentially conforming to what 200,000 years of homo sapien vision has accomplished over all these years. Exactly true. And regardless of the population dynamic we're talking about, I know that when there's things, even as people age with macular degeneration or glaucoma, they actually see better with natural light than even with advanced LEDs. The advanced LEDs can do a whole lot to mimic what the human eye needs but they can't do everything. Exactly. Plus we might mention, in case I don't mention it later, that Hawaii has the most expensive electricity in the nation and this is free lighting. Once it's installed, it's done. Okay, now this is a really interesting slide. This is something called CRI or Color Rendition Index. Can you run us through this here? The tubing, this is showing actually three materials commonly used with tubular daylighting devices. In the early years, typically the kind of blue looking light, that's polished aluminum. Now that's the one on the left. Excuse me, the left, correct. And the middle one, because you can see there's a lot of loss in the red and yellow range, the industry sputtered silver on top of it. So we call that Murio Silver. Now both of those two materials are all metal and they're conductors but also can conduct heat. We'll talk about that in just a minute. The one on the far right is actually that polymerized acrylic, the spectral light infinity, and you can see that the color rendering is essentially natural light and bright and vibrant, really lovely. Yeah, I think the most dramatic contrast is the lower orangish towel where the middle and the left are really, really washed out there. When you go into daylight stores, you see some of that. It's really mind-boggling. Yeah, and this is why a lot of the big buck stores, especially since their single story, they lend themselves to skylights. And natural light. Sales go up when you put that natural light down there. It's a nicer place to be, give you a big cart, you're going to spend more time there. And just to reiterate what you said earlier, you don't get what used to be solar heat gain, the heat of the sun coming through into the interior space. You and in all fairness, other manufacturers have managed to virtually eliminate any heat gain and that's the last thing we want in Hawaii is more heat gain. Yeah, in other parts of the country it can be cold issues, but here, yeah, that's especially important. Yeah, yeah. So on the next slide, the livery zone. So the idea here is once you've captured the light and ducted it deep into the building interior, controlling the light can be with traditional glazing methods, can be challenging, particularly if you're in a place where there's media, classrooms, smart boards, but also to maintain light levels and having controllability of systems. You can see that there's open ceiling units on the far right. The one with the transition box that's kind of rectangular is essentially designed for an acoustical ceiling tile and the day control can actually be connected to a lighting control system with a 0 to 10 volt dimmer and with that it actually allows for even having daylight become a theatrical light and complete control. Wow, so you can actually dim this up and down just like you can dim artificial lights. Exactly, now typically in a classroom, usually you're going to use as much daylight as you possibly can and dim the electrical light versus controlling the light, but say you're doing some kind of gymnastics event or some kind of sports rally, then maybe you want to focus on your key players or essentially create a drama scene, then it allows you to do that with day lighting in schools, for example. And especially in schools, there's a lot of audio-visual presentations in schools now at which point you want a very low level of ambient light. Precisely. Or when you want to get kids all excited, you want a higher level of light. Or nap time in preschool. Good point, good point, yeah. People don't really think about that. Oh, here's another extension of the controls and once you walk us through the first of the main slide and then the little guys. Okay, the drawing on top actually is kind of a cross-section to illustrate how typically in oftentimes classrooms, even though architects usually will try to incorporate window systems or other forms of day lighting, you still end up with a few classrooms that are landlocked, so to speak, or skylocked. And so what this is doing is showing, being able to bring in natural light and then we also have a few pictures here showing a classroom, a gymnasium, and you can see there that there's illumination by some transom windows, but you notice that the contrast ratios within this space are correct and the tubular day lighting devices are actually bringing that exterior light deep into that interior so that, again, your contrast ratios are proper. Contrast ratios are another way of putting it would be uniformity. Right. Where the human eye likes the same amount of light off in a corner of a room as it does right in the middle of a room and traditionally the old-fashioned skylights, or for that matter artificial light, would put what's called a puddle of light right under the source and then the light would get weaker and weaker and weaker as you go out but this is optically controlled such that you have virtually as much light off in what used to be a dark corner as you do right in the middle of the room and that really, really helps visual acuity also. It helps with the learning environment. Test scores are improved. Children with special needs, if there's ADD or ADHD, I've met several special needs teachers who almost get choked up and it's hard for you not to get choked up when you talk to them and they say, I don't want to teach in another electrically lit classroom. Even with LEDs, even though those don't have the flickering of traditional compact fluorescence and even those improved over time, if there's special needs, kids, that resolution still, even though it's higher, it still can be disruptive in the classroom environment. And let's go back to that. But meantime, we need to take a very short break. Howard Wigg, Think Tech, Hawaii with Joan Schaefer, Business Director, Manager of Solitu. Back in a minute. Hello, this is Martin Dispang. I want to get you excited about my new show, which is Humane Architecture for Hawaii and Beyond. We're going to broadcast on Tuesdays, 5 p.m. here on Think Tech, Hawaii. Aloha and Happy New Year. It's 2017. Please keep up with me on Power Up Hawaii, where Hawaii comes together to talk about a clean and just energy future. Please join me on Tuesdays at one o'clock. Mahalo. Hi, I'm Jay Fidel. That's Ted Ralston. You know, Ted is the host of Where the Road Leads. It shows every Friday from 4 to 5 p.m. It's about technology. It's about how people collaborate and solve problems with modern technology. It's where the road leads. We all know that. We should all be listening. Join us there, 4 to 5 p.m. every Friday. Now, what about that you agree with? All of it. I knew we'd say that. Aloha. Say Aloha. Aloha. Good. Good afternoon again, Howard Wigg, Code Green, Think Tech, Hawaii, Joan Schaefer, Business Development Manager for Solitu. And we're going to see a very brief video that Solitu produces. And why don't you walk us through this, Joan? This is a video that was done at a project called West Side Christian. It is in Tigard, Oregon, which is outside of Portland. And there's 20 units within this space. This is actually illustrating a wall wash for a pledge of allegiance. Or perhaps for a pep rally. Or now this is going to show the entire space. Now there's no windows within this space. Keep in mind not every gym is going to take 20 units. In Hawaii, you probably would need dine here. But the great thing is I actually have photometry that I can actually figure that information based on the nearest TM to weather data. And this is essentially showing, say, your spot performers. And then this last part is they're going to dim the lights for the movie presentation. So essentially you've gathered all the kids for whatever event it is, and then to show the media, they're going to turn the lights out essentially in about five seconds. Yeah. And this is connected to a lighting control system. And that would be the zero to ten volt dimmer. Totally, totally remarkable. I should have mentioned right up front Moore's Law, which says that computers will double in capacity and go down in size every 18 months. Remarkable improvements in that and a lot of technology, including daylighting technology. And I think this was totally undoable five, six, seven, eight years ago. Correct. We could have done a similar, not the zero to ten volt, but we could have done similar light levels, but you would have had to have more than twice as many units. So much less roof penetrations, a more robust system. And our product is modular in nature. So you're going to choose the parts and pieces. I think of daylighting Legos, so to speak. So the flashing that you use in Hawaii is going to be different than what I use in Seattle, which is typically a 12 inch insulated curb or in Winnipeg, Manitoba, typically where they have R40 roofs. You're typically going to have a 24 inch insulated curb. Yeah. We don't have to worry a whole lot about that. And so it's really fun if architects and engineers, they actually do put holes when they have an R40 roof to value because they value daylighting. And the concept of the control is just mind boggling because especially in a school situation, sometimes you want it very dim. And as you pointed out in the video, you can highlight different sections of the room. And in other times, you want it very, very bright to get, and the gym kids all roused up or whatever. For gym class. Yeah. Or a sports game. Yeah. We're really, really big on the college volleyball here. You want plenty of light down on that volleyball court. And without reflection of the surface too. You want even illumination. Yeah. So that's just mind boggling in the improvements that are going on with daylighting. So here's our next slide. Oh, this looks vaguely familiar. Could this be somewhere in Hawaii? You're going to have to help me pronounce the correction. Is this polymomy? Yes. And it actually won an IES award in 2013. But they brought natural light in over the stairwell area. And again, you can see they were able to blend the color temperature of the electric light with the natural light. And there's significant research more and more on the impact of natural light and healing. Faster heal times. But it's also a much more pleasant place to be. But also even nurses, we do a lot of nurses stations because the patients often will have window systems. But the ones who are essentially there 24-7 and have issues with circadian rhythms are the nurses and the staff. So natural light greatly benefits them and they're deep into the building interior typically. And you and I were earlier discussing the Hechon Mahon school studies that triggered this whole business 30-something years ago now. The first studies were in schools where you would take kids and a teacher to a very, very poor day lighting and stick them into an environment where they had wonderful day lighting that was carefully controlled so you didn't have solar gain or glare. And if I remember correctly, the kids' test scores went up by up to 20 percent. 21 percent in mathematics and 26 percent in reading. But the other part that was so important is the kids learn the material like 40 percent faster. So it wasn't just the end result, the whole process was improved. And then you can imagine the teachers, too. They had the feel. You use the word pleasant. It's a pleasant environment and you just showed that in the polymomy. In Europe, they're building methodology. They actually incorporate day lighting to keep good teachers. Now, not that that doesn't benefit the students as well, but it's just a different angle of looking at the bigger picture. And again, you're controlling the light levels and the glare and the heat all at once. Exactly. Yeah. So what in the world is this now? This is in Overland, Florida. This is Alpha 2 Omega algae. You can see the ducting of the tubes going into these large tanks. They use algae for things like biofuel, personal products. They tested several different LEDs and they still use some LEDs for certain processes. But there's tubes going into each of these tanks to create the ideal skylight condition for growing algae. And this is an explanation? Yeah. This is a case study that's actually on... You can find this on the Solitube website if you'd like to read more information. But in Florida, why wouldn't you just expose it to the daylight? Just put it out there in the sun or something? It's got to be controlled light and it's very color-specific. Each of those tanks are about 3,000 gallons. It's a very elaborate process. I didn't cover the Florida territory, so I've never actually seen it. But more and more grow facilities are becoming, whether plants as well as algae, it's an opportunity for bringing light in without heat, which is really critical, not just for the building envelope, but for the plants themselves and reducing water use. Another thing we're learning more and more about is the fact that different plants respond to different elements of the color spectra. And they grow or they don't grow. And the process, the par levels are different for different plant levels or light levels with different groups of plants. But it makes sense if you think about a forest environment, what do you see in the ender story compared to what you see out in the desert in Arizona? Those are all very different climate zones and plants are specific to where they're happiest on the planet. And we're beginning even to learn that plants just like us need to go to sleep. Wow, this is just heady, heady stuff. Now, this looks very intriguing. What's going on here? This is a very exciting project. This was Michigan's first lead platinum school. Now, one of the things about getting to net zero, you know, that's ultimately our goal. But to do that, you actually need to reduce the existing load on the building. Now, you can see the one foot insulated curves because they're in a cold climate there. But in order to reduce the load on the building, we're able to daylight that space with about one to one and a half percent of the roof being taken up. And that allows enough room for PV panels as well. The military uses a strategy and the product actually meets the anti-terrorism and hurricane blast, not that they need to, you know, have hurricane concerns in Michigan, but here we need to address that as well. Yeah, I think you're rated for up at least to 105 miles an hour, 110, something like that, or is it above that? I believe that's correct, yeah. Yeah, because we're becoming more and more conscious of hurricanes. We haven't had any knock on wood, but we know that the ocean's getting warmer, and do we have any more slides here? We're just wrapping. Oh, my goodness gracious. Speaking of grow operations. This is very curious looking here. This is, Flourish Farms is in the process actually of changing their name, but Jonathan, I hope I'm saying his name right, Cassette is a PhD from Berkeley, and they wanted to, there's kind of an ugly side to cannabis growing that nobody really wants to talk about, and this actually, they were able to reduce the electric load. This is in Santa Rosa, California. Each of those collectors on top are capturing light, and these are 10 foot by 10 foot sheds. What they're doing is bringing with the solitubes light deep into those cavities and growing plants. Now there are links on the website as well, but this is basically showing what that interior looks like, and they were able to reduce the electric use by 90%. And in Hawaii, I think that's a very familiar looking plant to those in the industry. We've been talking about medical cannabis or Pakololo for I think it's four years now, and there are all kinds of details, legal details to be worked out, and some of our most prominent businessmen have applied for growing licenses, and it looks like they'll finally, finally get permission to grow, but once you start growing, you begin to think of, hmm, this is a very interesting plant to a lot of people. Might they want to come in at three in the morning with a pair of scissors? Therefore, you're going to have to really carefully protect this growing area, maybe even to the point of enclosing it. Yeah, it's a security's a concern. Actually, pests and keeping it pure from the exterior environment is another concern, but also controllability, each of those solitubes in that grow facility actually have a dimmer, because for proper bud development, growing the buds properly, it's kind of like poinsettias on steroids. I mean, you've got to control the photo period critically, and obviously they've done the research to be able to know how to do that. Yeah, you're, for anybody in the audience who was aware in the 1960s, you're bringing back some memories here. And we agreed that we're going to have a whole future segment on some time just about daylighting LEDs and growing crops, be it this very, very high value crop or else, because we're learning so much more about, and we're having a land shortage worldwide. So we need to wrap up. Let me just reiterate that. Daylighting technology is improving at a mile a minute, and this is a super, super example of that with all kinds of potential for human health and for economics. So on that cherry note, we will wrap up Code Green, Think Tech Hawaii, Joan Schaefer, Business Product Manager for SolarTube. Thank you so much for being with us, Joan. It's a joy to be here. Thanks so much.