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An LED flashblack: The 2009 NCAA men’s basketball championship celebration on Franklin Street

Monday, April 5th, 2010

This time last year, all eyes were on Chapel Hill, NC, after the Tar Heels secured the Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship. Fans filled Franklin Street, celebrating the win in true Tar Heel style, by taking the fun to the streets.

Many of us watched the revelry from the comfort of our couches. On TV, we saw thousands of students and fans dotting the main drag through Chapel Hill, cheering and jumping over fires. At Cree, we watched intently for other reasons.

About a week before the championship game, ten high-pressure sodium (HPS) streetlights on Franklin Street were replaced with LED streetlights. The orange glow cast by the HPS streetlights was cast aside and the white light produced by the new LED streetlights helped make colors pop.

The LED streetlights were installed in the 100 block of Franklin Street where students and residents gather to celebrate events like Halloween and big Tar Heel wins.

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Flickr user benuski posted this picture of Franklin Street during the 2009 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship celebration. Note the orange glow from the HPS streetlight.

Since the LED streetlights help make colors pop, it was easy to see which section of Franklin Street featured the energy-saving LED lights and which section was still stuck with the dimmer HPS streetlights. In the LED-lit section, you could actually see the Carolina blue T-shirts Tar Heel fans were rocking. In the HPS-lit section, it just looked like a dingy, orangey mob with some semblance of blue mixed in.

Take a look for yourself in this time-lapse video The Daily Tar Heel produced of the Franklin Street celebration last year. You’ll see the LED-lit side of the street on the left and the dingy HPS-lit side on the right:

Timelapse: Franklin Street after the victory from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.

See, looks like the LED Lighting Revolution has game.

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Posted in Places Rocking LED Lights, Revolution, Videos | 2 Comments »

High Definition screens at American Airlines Center put HD in every seat

Friday, March 26th, 2010

I’ve been known to jump up and down or wave my scarf at hockey games in hopes of being projected on the big screen in between plays. But if I ever attend a Dallas Stars game, I’d probably check my hair and makeup before I attempted to attract the cameras.

That’s because the American Airlines Center now features high definition screens, which means Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks fans can now experience HD in every seat. And let’s face it, few people would enjoy being projected in HD in front of a stadium full of people with Alfalfa hair! But how awesome would it be to follow game highlights in HD (especially if your seats are in the nosebleed section).

I know we focus closely on the LED lighting revolution – helping the world ditch its addiction to incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. But our LEDs are also used in some other neat applications, and when I hear about uses such as these massive HD screens, I have to share them!

Here are some pictures:

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So how many Cree LEDs are used to light the 25 individual screens at the American Airlines Center? 13 million. Pretty incredible, huh?

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Posted in For Fun, Places Rocking LED Lights | 1 Comment »

California city once known as a getaway for Hollywood stars turns focus to sustainability

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Most people who visit Indian Wells, California, are probably drawn in by the four world class resorts, the spas and the lush golf courses. The resort community in the southern California desert became a retreat for celebrities after Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz opened the Indian Wells Hotel in 1958. Since then, city officials have worked to make Indian Wells a premiere destination in the Coachella Valley.

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These days, city officials are keen on sustainability, and energy-use reduction has become a key goal for the city. I had the “tough” job of visiting Indian Wells last month for an LED City® Council meeting, and while I was there I had the city’s management analyst Susan Weisbart give me a tour of some of the city’s LED lighting installations.

Indian Wells was the first California city to become an LED City. The LED City program helps municipalities speed up the adoption of energy-saving LED lights by connecting them with information they need to make informed decisions about installing LED lights.

One of the first LED lighting installations in Indian Wells involved swapping out incandescent lights that lit the outside of city hall and other municipal buildings with 12 Watt Cree LR6™ recessed lights. It’s a change that city officials say saves nearly $7,000 a year in energy costs. That’s not counting the maintenance savings of not having to replace burned out bulbs, since the LED lights they installed are designed to last 50,000 hours – or 17 years if they’re on 8 hours a day!

The city also has plans to replace the 50 Watt halogen lights illuminating the signature palm trees lining city streets with 11 Watt LED lights. Get this: The city estimates it can save $10,095 in energy costs per year once the project is complete!

Watch my LED tour and interview with Susan to see what Indian Wells is doing to save energy and money:

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Posted in LED Cities, Places Rocking LED Lights, Videos | 1 Comment »

Orlando resort converts hundreds of fixtures to LED lights, projects to save $131,000 in first year

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

One of the biggest perks of LED lighting is how much energy it saves. We’re living in a world where it’s crucial to conserve resources. And a perk of saving energy is that it typically translates into fewer dollars on utility bills.

But it’s one thing to say you’ll conserve energy and reduce utility bills when you use LED lighting, and it’s another thing to actually experience the savings. So when I heard how much energy and money a large Orlando resort is saving by using LED lights, I had to share the details with you.

The Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort is one of the largest resorts in Orlando, Florida, and it recently underwent a multi-million dollar renovation that included replacing traditional, antiquated lighting fixtures in its 54 hallways, as well as its freshly refurbished 10,000-square-foot lobby.

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The amount of energy and money the resort is saving with its new LED lights is remarkable.

According to Regency Lighting, replacing the resort’s hallway lighting with Cree LR6™ recessed downlights is projected to have a cumulative savings of approximately $131,659 in the first year, with a return on investment of about nine months. These savings include projected energy, labor and cooling expenses, as well as the cost of the new LED lights. By the fourth year of the LED lighting installation, this resort is expected to save more than half a million dollars!

LED lights make good sense for the resort’s lobbies and hallways because they’re lit 24-hours a day, seven days a week. The resort replaced halogen lighting fixtures located between each hotel room with 636 Cree LR6 LED lights. Those lights only consume 10.5 watts of power, an impressive 90-percent energy savings over the two 50-watt halogen bulbs they replaced! But they didn’t stop there.

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In the hotel’s lobby – which features live bamboo, animal statues and an indoor garden – halogen lights were replaced with Cree LRP-38™ LED bulbs, saving more than 80 percent on energy consumption alone.

So the next time you’re staying at a hotel look up at the lights in the lobby and hallways. If they’re not LED lights, tell the manager the hotel needs to join the LED lighting revolution. After all, one of the key parts of a revolution is rallying others to join the movement.

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Posted in Places Rocking LED Lights, Revolution | 7 Comments »

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

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

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).

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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.

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Posted in LED Businesses, Places Rocking LED Lights, Videos | 4 Comments »

Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum installs LED Lights

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

A new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is a dream for space exploration fans.  The new “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibit features a 12-foot tall space shuttle model, parts of the Hubble Space Telescope and a model of the Ares launch vehicle. But there’s something even more exciting at the exhibit for LED lighting fans like me – LED lights are replacing the 30-year-old mercury vapor work lights!

Cree’s LR24 recessed LED lights are lighting up the gallery for about eight hours each day so museum staff can clean the gallery and take care of other maintenance when the exhibit isn’t open.

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The work lights will be on for about eight hours a day. And since the museum’s new LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, they could last 17 years if the lights are on eight hours a day, seven days a week!

You can read all about the installation and some more details about the benefits of having the LED lights at the Smithsonian here.

So if you go to the exhibit, look up at the 20-foot high ceilings and take note of those square lights (they’ll likely be turned off, unless you get a job working at the Smithsonian after hours) and smile to yourself because now you know yet another place that has joined the LED Lighting Revolution.

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Posted in Places Rocking LED Lights, Revolution | No Comments »

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