LED In Business

The City of Ann Arbor (MI) has been running a pilot project to try out LED street lights in one of the first such installations in the country. The City's supervisor of signs got the manufacturer of some of the city's downtown streetlights to create a retrofit lamp that used LEDs.

Although, LEDs are not the most efficient form of lighting in terms of lumens per watt, their extremely long life makes them more economical to operate over their span of operation because they need to be changed so infrequently, and LEDs can provide a more pleasant spectrum of light than sodium lamps do. The downtown globe lights have had small placards soliciting public feedback attached to them since the test started at the beginning of the year.

According to the local newspaper, only three comments received have been negative, and the department has been getting inquiries about the lights from across the U.S. as well as Canada and Europe. The city hopes to be able to cut its $1.39 million street lighting budget in half by switching to LED street lighting, and that accounts for just the energy savings. Maintenance savings will allow crews to be able to concentrate more on other projects within the city. The manufacturer of the streetlights is also working with the LED manufacturer from the pilot program to develop a streetlight that is directly manufactured for use with LEDs.

via: Ann Arbor News (second story in link)

 

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Fact: Macy's retail store in Chicago expects to save more than $47,640 annually by switching to LED lights in its store, and if all Macy's 180 North American stores switched over to LED the annual savings would total $8,575,200! Because LED lights last far longer then the average incandescent bulb, their savings over a 10 year period would account for nearly one-half billion dollars!*

*The Business Ledger Feb. 18, 2008 Vol.16 No. 4