Cree, Inc.

WRAL Tweetup offered inside look into the newsroom

Posted by Ginny

WRAL, the biggest TV station in the Triangle, invited local Twitter users to bring lunch to their studios for a brown bag tweetup Friday afternoon. It seemed like a good chance to get a glimpse of the newsroom and network with local media types and other tweeps, so off I went.

The first person I met in Studio A was James Robinson (@jerobins on Twitter). When he found out I work at Cree, he quickly produced a flashlight from his pocket and proudly declared that it had a Cree LED inside. Sweet, I thought, I’ve been at this event for 5 minutes and someone else is dropping LED references for me.

As we ate our lunch, WRAL meteorologist/executive producer Nate Johnson told about some of the station’s social media efforts. He showed us the master Twitter list of all employees who tweet and told us about the station’s new site for moms.

Afterward, we gathered for tours of the TV Station. As I waited for my group to go, the guy who runs the @chathamnc Twitter account introduced himself. He tweets about news happening in Chatham County, NC, and also follows Cree on Twitter. He warmed my LED-loving heart when he told me that he really believes LED lights will replace CFLs someday. After all, he asked, why would anyone want lights that contain mercury like CFLs when they can have LED lights? Good question.

Overall, the WRAL Tweetup was a great opportunity to meet new people and get a feel for what goes on behind-the-scenes at the TV Station. But it was even better knowing that out of the approximately 50 people in the room, there were a couple who were proud to tout LEDs!

It means the LED Lighting Revolution really is gaining momentum, from a street corner of Raleigh, NC to a Tweetup at WRAL. Cree’s Ice Skating Tweetup has been rescheduled to Tuesday, Feb. 9. If you’d like a chance to meet some tweeps and ice skate under LED lights at the downtown Raleigh outdoor ice rink, sign up for free tickets here.

Raleigh, NC celebrates three year commitment to LED lighting

Posted by Ginny

Think back to February 2007. What were you doing back then to save energy? It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, the push for energy-efficient lighting focused on CFLs. It was in early 2007 that Yahoo launched a website urging people to switch to CFL bulbs.

But while much of the world was focusing its attention on CFLs, the city of Raleigh was setting its sights on even more energy-efficient technology: LED lighting.

Yesterday we celebrated Raleigh’s three year LED City® anniversary. In February 2007, Raleigh became the first city in the world to join the Cree LED City program, an initiative to deploy and promote LED lighting in cities throughout the world.

Raleigh joined the program by installing LED lights at just one spot in the city to see what results the city would achieve. Three years later, city officials are so impressed with LED lighting that Raleigh now has more than 40 installations, ranging from accent and indoor lighting to street and parking lot lighting.

So how much is the city saving by using LED lights? City officials estimate the city is saving $215,000 a year on energy and maintenance costs.

In fact, city spokeswoman Jayne Kirkpatrick is so jazzed about the savings that she tried to quantify it for taxpayers. She told us that the city’s annual savings from LED lighting is the equivalent of four police officer or firefighter salaries; five years of sidewalk repairs; five years of sports field renovations or the cost of nearly two brand-new garbage trucks.

Want to see some of the places that boast LED lighting in Raleigh? Take a look at this Google map I put together. The map includes video of the following locations: Underground parking deck at Raleigh Convention Center, street lights outside Progress Energy Headquarters, pedestrian lighting at Exchange Plaza, street lights at Raleigh Convention Center, architectural lighting on City Plaza Art Towers and solar street lights at Campbell University Law School parking lot.

View Raleigh, NC: An LED City Tour in a larger map

If you’re interested in getting your city to try energy-efficient LED lights, here are the steps your city needs to take.

Cree brings the LED Lighting Revolution home at the International Builders’ Show

Posted by Ginny

Take one look at our booth at the International Builders’ Show and you’ll see that we’re serious about bringing LED Lighting into your home.

In the LED lighting biz, we often hear from people who say they bought an LED bulb at the grocery store and it stunk. As a result, they write off LED lighting as an expensive technology that doesn’t live up to its price tag, or billing.

At Cree, our hearts seriously break a little each time we hear that. Our booth at the International Builders’ Show explains why. You see, we’re making these gorgeous recessed LED lights that provide beautiful, warm color and are designed to last a crazy long time (50,000 hours). These LED lights are the real deal. They’re not too dim. They’re not bluish. They don’t flicker.

Yet, like anything, it often only takes one bad apple to give everyone else a bad name. My co-worker Deb actually blogged today about the LED bulbs you can buy in the store that are supposed to be a 60-Watt equivalent.  Deb wrote: “Unfortunately, except for a few, they are mostly too dim or bluish, or worse, flicker and then go out for good.”

So we’re hoping that our booth at the International Builders’ Show will help SHOW people that LED lighting is ready for the home. It just depends on the type of LED lighting you use and how you use it.

All the lights you see in these photos from our booth are Cree LED lights, and we think they’re beautiful. True, they’re not light bulbs that you would screw into your desk lamp, but they provide very efficient overhead lighting for your home. And that, my friends, makes our hearts sing.

How an engineer’s 21-minute YouTube video on LED Lighting and Thermal Design wiped a sour look off my face

Posted by Ginny

If you told me a week ago that I would be thoroughly entertained by a 21-minute YouTube video featuring an engineer talking about thermal design, I would’ve shot you one of these looks:

But that was before I was introduced to David L. Jones’ vlog. The title caught my attention right away: “Solid-State LED Lighting, and How Thermal Design Sucks.” Please note, he doesn’t say Solid State LED Lighting sucks.

Dave is an engineer who lives in Sydney, Australia. Armed with a video camera and a heck of a lot of enthusiasm, Dave decided to attach some Cree LEDs to a piece of aluminum to light up his new outdoor deck. For the record, Cree didn’t know he was doing this. I say this because even though he doesn’t like the act of calculating the junction temperature of each LED (hence his blog title … “How Thermal Design Sucks”), he ended up loving the results he achieved with our LEDs. And because he’s so enthusiastic and sincere, I actually sat through the entire 21-minute video and watched him fill up his whiteboard with calculations that are way over my head.

If you don’t have 21 minutes to spare, here are some highlights:

Watch the first four minutes for context. Tune in again at the 17:15 mark to hear his declarations about why his calculations are a waste of time. Then skip to 19:20 to hear him describe the difference between efficacy and efficiency (don’t be fooled by their similar spellings, there is a difference) and then stay tuned for the rest of the video to see what all his hard work went toward.

Dave tells video viewers not to bother writing in and telling him that his model was wrong. So I won’t go into whether his calculations make sense, but stay tuned to the 21 minute mark and you can see that regardless of whether his model was right or wrong, his homemade LED lighting system sure looks sharp.

North Carolina’s first green McDonald’s uses LED Lights (and cotton, bamboo, recycled glass and more)

Posted by Ginny

Take a quick look at one McDonald’s in Cary, NC, and you might not guess that it’s different than every other McDonald’s in North Carolina. But step inside and you’ll see why this McDonald’s in the Saltbox Village shopping center is making history.

The restaurant is the first green McDonald’s in the state, on track to receive its LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council later this month. (Take a look at the 25+ year-old McDonald’s v. the new one. Approximately 99 percent of the debris generated by the demolition process was diverted from landfills by either being reused or recycled).

I recently visited the restaurant to chat with franchise owner Ric Richards about why he chose LED lights to light up 97 percent of the store. Turns out the LED lights in his store consume 78 percent less electricity compared to a standard lighting package at other McDonald’s restaurants.

The restaurant was designed to take advantage of natural light and uses a fully automated, intelligent lighting-control system that combines light from Cree LED lighting and daylighting from Solatube skylights. There’s even a photo sensor to maintain the proper light levels on work surfaces. So, if it’s rainy and overcast outside, the LED light levels are increased to compensate. And since the system is automated, it’s not up to an employee to notice the changing light levels and fool around with the switches. How cool is that?!

Of course, there are many other neat steps taken to use green technologies, and there’s even a touchscreen video kiosk at the front of the store that shows off some of technologies. Here’s a video featuring some of the neat building materials used in construction and my interview with Ric about the energy-efficient LED lights:

Stay tuned, we’ll be updating you soon on the official LEED certification of Ric’s franchise.