Mississippi Energy Efficiency and Ethics 15 PDH Discount Package 2

This online engineering PDH course provides information on a wide variety of energy-related topics, ranging from simple weatherization, insulation, heating and cooling system improvements in homes, to installing and maintaining efficient water heaters, home appliances and solar panels.

Every year, a typical family in the United States spends around half of its home energy budget on heating and cooling. Unfortunately, many of those dollars are often wasted, because conditioned air escapes through leaky ceilings, walls and foundations, or flows through inadequately insulated attics, pipes, exterior walls and basements. In addition, many appliances, heating systems and air conditioners aren’t properly maintained, are old and inefficient, compared to models being sold today.

By properly maintaining your existing heating and cooling equipment (or replacing aging units with high-efficiency models), addressing weatherization and insulation issues at your house and getting into the habit of using energy efficiently all the time, you can save 10 to 30 percent (or more) on your utility bills every year. You will also help reduce pollution at utility plants that use fossil fuels to generate electricity.

This online engineering PDH course presents guidelines on how to reduce mechanical system water use in residential buildings. Mechanical systems are frequently utilized to provide heating and cooling for residential properties. They typically fall into two categories: centralized and decentralized systems.

Centralized mechanical systems provide heating and cooling from a central location, such as a mechanical room or utility penthouse. These systems are more common in mid- and high-rise multifamily properties and can include cooling towers, boilers, and steam systems, each of which uses water as the heat transfer medium. As a result, the use of water for building heating and cooling can be significant and using sound management practices is a good opportunity for water savings.

Decentralized mechanical systems treat each unit of a multifamily property as its own space, as if each unit were a stand-alone single-family residence. These systems do not typically use process water, so they are not the focus of this water efficiency management guide.

This online engineering PDH course provides basic information on wireless occupancy for lighting controls.

Lighting use constitutes about 20% of the total energy consumption in commercial buildings. Adding lighting controls is a simple retrofit option than can save on energy costs while helping to meet agency and federal energy savings mandates. Some energy codes and federal standards require the use of lighting controls.

Studies have shown that adding lighting controls can reduce lighting energy use 10% to 90% or more depending on the use of the space in which the sensors are installed. One study conducted on a university campus found that installing wired occupancy sensors to control lighting in more than 200 rooms in 10 buildings provided an annual cost savings of about $14,000 with a simple payback of 4.2 years.

This online engineering PDH course provides basic information on LED troffer retrofit lighting and controls best practices.

Lighting use constitutes about 20% of the total source electricity consumption in commercial buildings. Most of the lighting in U.S. commercial buildings is provided by fluorescent troffer ceiling fixtures. There are currently over 350 million installed troffers using more than 65 million kWh (the annual energy usage of 6 million U.S. homes).

Retrofitting these fluorescent troffers to light-emitting diode (LED) sources offers the potential for enormous energy savings. As of 2015, only 5% of the troffers in use had LED light sources. At a project level, retrofitting or replacing fluorescent troffers with LEDs can result in energy savings of 20% to 60% and help agencies meet energy-efficiency goals.

In this online engineering PDH course, background on the philosophical models that guide ethical behavior is discussed and then applied to specific situations in engineering codes of ethics. This course is based on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Professional Practice Curriculum, Volume 8, Section: Engineering Ethics.

Many engineering organizations have drafted codes of ethics to which their members are required to commit.  Generally, these codes are quite similar and are based on a few fundamental principles which provide guidance to professional engineers in common situations. Nevertheless, there are many difficult or ambiguous situations in which the best ethical solution is difficult to determine.

This 2 PDH online course is intended primarily for engineers seeking to learn ethical principles and how to apply them to their professional practice.