By Jeff Reinke, Editorial DirectorIf you build it … they will come.” That’s what Kevin Costner taught us in Field Of Dreams. Similarly, a new lighting initiative offers perspective on the bottom-line benefits of energy-efficient product designs.
LED City is comprised of municipalities and organizations that have placed an emphasis on evaluating, deploying and promoting LED lighting technology. Those who champion this cause feel these municipal lighting initiatives can help save energy, protect the environment, reduce maintenance costs and even, shockingly, provide better light quality.
Those cities of note that have chosen to participate include Raleigh, NC, Toronto, Ontario and, most recently, Ann Arbor, MI.
In Ann Arbor, the city plans on replacing more than 1,000 of its current streetlights with LED-based versions that use Relume Technologies light engines, which are based off of Cree’s XLamp® LED. Ann Arbor is the first U.S. city to convert 100 percent of its downtown streetlights to LED technology.
The city anticipates that it will take about 3.8 years for them to see the payback on this investment. This is based on energy savings from products that are expected to burn five times longer than the bulbs being replaced, while requiring less than half the energy. More specifically, each new fixture draws 56 watts, and its bulb is projected to last 10 years, as opposed to the former units that used more than 120 watts and carried a two-year life expectancy.
Once fully implemented, this changeover is projected to cut Ann Arbor’s public lighting energy use in half and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2,425 tons annually. This is reportedly equivalent to taking 400 cars off the road for a year.
In discussing the city’s decision, Mayor John Hieftje stated that the initial installation could save Ann Arbor more than $100,000 per year. So with an expected return on investment of about 3.8 years, some quick math would point to an initial investment of about $380,000—not a bad piece of business.
My intention here is not to champion the use of LEDs over other lighting options, but rather to highlight (pun intended) the fact that the energy-efficient nature of this product proved to be a significant selling point.
In many instances, regulations like RoHS or governing bodies like CARB mandate environmental controls without always identifying or showing concern for the economic impacts felt by those businesses that will have to find solutions to meet these changes.
This situation, however, offers some light at the end of the tunnel (I couldn’t help myself) in showcasing how a demand was realized and met. And this is not an isolated incident.
While the challenges associated with designing and developing products with increased energy conservation or environmental consideration can be significant, the rewards can be equally as great. Before anyone can display the desire to implement such a product, someone has to have the courage and determination to design and build one.
In this respect, it’s kind of like playing baseball in an Iowa cornfield.
What’s your take? Send comments to
jeff.reinke@advantagemedia.com.
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