Carnegie Mellon Researchers Examine Economic Feasibility Of Using Direct Current Circuits To Power Lights in Commercial Buildings

: Carnegie Mellon Researchers Examine Economic Feasibility Of Using Direct Current Circuits To Power Lights in Commercial Buildings-Carnegie Mellon News - Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie Mellon Researchers Examine Economic Feasibility Of Using Direct Current Circuits To Power Lights in Commercial Buildings - New Research Finds Swapping Fluorescent Lamps with LEDs Saves Thousands of Dollars. Chriss Swaney / 412-268-5776 / swaney [a] andrew.cmu (p) edu PITTSBURGH—For more than a century, electric power has been produced and distributed using alternating current (AC) technology championed by George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla. Carnegie Mellon University researchers report that a competing direct current (DC) electrical power system, pioneered by Thomas A. Edison in the 1880s, may be the most economic way to power lights in commercial buildings, especially in buildings using solar photovoltaics (PV). In a paper published in Energy Policy, CMU's Brinda Thomas, Ines L. Azevedo and M. Granger Morgan examined the economic feasibility of using dedicated DC circuits to operate lighting in commercial buildings. They considered several lighting technologies and scenarios where the electricity used to power lighting devices in a 48,000-square-foot building came from either a central DC power supply or traditional AC grid electricity. "We found that if you used DC instead of AC and your building has fluorescent light, the cost is basically the same or slightly higher with DC," said Azevedo, executive director of CMU's Climate and Energy-Decision Making Center and an assistant professor in the Engineering and Public Policy Department (EPP).