Heating System: Local Warming: A MIT Senseable City Laboratory Project

Looking at the growth of population and availability of resources, it is highly essential to use the available resources wisely. Can you imagine, 20% of US energy consumption happens in commercial buildings? If you visit a huge building like a museum or office located is cold city, the energy consumption of heating that building either 10 people or 50 people inside will remain the same. Keeping these numbers in mind, the Engineers at MIT's Senseable City Lab came up with a prototype heating system called "Local Warming'.

Local Warming LED Spotlight

In Local Warming system, a prototype LED spotlight shoots an infrared beam of heat at you as you walk around the room. This spotlight is connected to a series of motion sensors that can detect people who are moving around and once they are detected, the bulb swings around to shoot the heat right at them.  Local Warming seems to be highly efficient way of saving electricity when the crowd is less and building is huge. Just imagine, you are sitting in your lobby in winters and this ‘Local Warming System’ is just focusing on you rather than heating the whole lobby!

Currently, this prototype Local Warming system project is displayed at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In this setup they have put a large infrared bulb surrounded by rotating mirrors that can direct light into a focused beam. Not only indoor, in future this system might also be installed in parks outside. The Local Warming project team has assured that future installations will be more compact than this one and also they will bring the necessary changes based on the feedback before it's launch.