Cree LED Revolution Blog

Cree and LED lighting are starting a revolution

Posts Tagged ‘LED city’

City of Asheville: Successfully Driving the Adoption of Street Lights in North Carolina

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Being a leader can be exhilarating. Take Cree, for example. We love leading the LED Lighting Revolution. You could even say we find it electrifying. So when we hear US cities, like Asheville, are implementing LED lighting, it pumps us up!

The City of Asheville has initiated North Carolina’s first large-scale deployment of LED street lights. This large-scale deployment, made possible through a grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, allows Asheville to take the necessary steps to improve energy efficiency and reduce its overall carbon footprint.

Street Lights in Asheville, North Carolina

In the initial phase of the project, completed in June 2011, 730 street lights were replaced with 67-watt to 195-watt LEDway® luminaires. An additional 2,913 LEDway® street lights are currently being installed, and the City anticipates saving 50 percent of current energy use and maintenance costs due to the LED upgrade.

“Upgrading to LED street lights allows us to decrease energy consumption, increase energy efficiency and contribute to the sustainability of our community,” said Maggie Ullman, energy coordinator for the Asheville Office of Sustainability. “This exciting initiative helps affirm Asheville’s role as a leader in carbon footprint reduction.”

Street Lights in Asheville, North Carolina

Here are just some of the benefits of the Asheville installation project:

  • By upgrading all HPS and mercury vapor street lights to LEDway® luminaires, the City anticipates a savings of approximately $260,000 per year from the combined energy and maintenance savings.
  • Phase one of the LEDway® luminaires installation reduces the City’s carbon footprint by an estimated one percent and saves approximately $45,000 in energy cost per year.

In addition to saving energy, this installation demonstrates how municipalities and local utilities can work together. “As more municipalities commit to replacing outdated, inefficient lighting with the support of their local utilities, LED adoption and consumer awareness continue to increase,” said Christopher Ruud, President of Ruud Lighting, a Cree Company. “We applaud the City of Asheville and Progress Energy for working together for the benefit of its citizens demonstrating the growing trend of cities and municipalities working together to join the LED lighting revolution.”

Is your city taking the necessary steps to install LED lighting? Tell us about it.

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Posted in BetaLED, LED Cities | 4 Comments »

Street festival planned to celebrate Raleigh’s Hillsborough Street revitalization, including LED street lights

Friday, September 24th, 2010

It’s not often that thousands of people get together just to celebrate a street. But that’s exactly what will be happening Saturday in Raleigh, NC, when the city hosts a street celebration festival for Hillsborough Street.

The “Live It Up” Street Opening Celebration is meant to unite neighbors, business owners, students and other Raleigh residents to salute the recently-renovated street. And while most eyes will probably be on the performers, beer garden and farmers market set up to celebrate, we lighting geeks will be looking up at the new LED street and pedestrian lights that have been installed.

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LED street lights shine down on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, NC, adjacent to North Carolina State University.

The city of Raleigh replaced the energy-wasting metal halide lights that used to line the street with energy-efficient LED lighting manufactured by BetaLED, a Wisconsin-based company that uses Cree LEDs in its lights. Here’s what got replaced:

  • 15 metal halide street lights consuming 370 Watts each were replaced with 15 183-Watt LED street lights.
  • 40 metal halide street lights consuming 289 Watts a piece were replaced with 40 79-Watt LED street lights.
  • 85 metal halide streetlights consuming 190 Watts each were replaced with 85 55-Watt LED pedestrian lights.

In addition to saving energy and maintenance costs, the new LED lights have also improved visibility for pedestrians and drivers, says Bob Henderson, technical lighting consultant for Progress Energy, the city’s energy provider.

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City officials had to jump through some hoops to get the LED street lights installed, including convincing the North Carolina Department of Transportation (which owns the road) that it was the right move. Raleigh’s Assistant City Manager Dan Howe talks about the process in this video:

Howe says the city is going to continue to evaluate LED street lighting.

“We’ve done a couple of little pilot projects and they were successful, but this is a major public corridor and it’s working,” Howe said. “So what we’re going to try to do from this point out is to test the viability of LED lighting in a variety of street light settings around the city: Residential street lights, commercial streets in industrial areas, commercial streets in downtown and some other retail areas.”

Howe said the city still has a bit to learn about things like proper spacing of lights, the best height for the poles and more, but that these test installations will help the city determine some best practices before tackling even bigger street lighting projects.

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The difference with the LED street lights on the right is obvious. The LED lights provide clean, white light compared to the orange high pressure sodium lights on the right.

To see more examples of LED lighting in Raleigh, take a look at this Raleigh LED City tour.

And for more information about Saturday’s Hillsborough Street celebration, which Cree is sponsoring, check out the schedule of events.

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Posted in For Fun, LED Cities, 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 »

Raleigh, NC celebrates three year commitment to LED lighting

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

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.

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Skate under LED lights at the #RaleighLED Ice Skating Tweetup

Friday, January 15th, 2010

It’s been more than three years since city officials in Raleigh, NC, first installed energy-efficient LED lighting. Since then, the city has embraced the energy-saving technology by installing LED lights at more than two dozen locations around the city!

At Cree, we’re excited to honor the city of Raleigh as the world’s first LED City® with the #RaleighLED Ice Skating Tweetup!

Triangle-area Twitter users and other LED lighting fans are invited to ice skate under LED lights at downtown Raleigh’s outdoor ice rink from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31.

You can secure your free ice skate rental by registering for #RaleighLED Ice Skating Tweetup here.

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The Raleigh Winterfest Ice Rink is one of more than two dozen locations in Raleigh that features LED lighting. It’s an awesome chance to sip on some hot chocolate, mingle with Tweeps, see LED lights and get your outdoor skate on.

LED lighting will play a big role in Raleigh during the week of Feb. 1, when the Department of Energy hosts its Solid-State Lighting Research and Design Workshop at the Raleigh Convention Center. I bet you didn’t even know that the fancy industry term for LED lighting is “Solid-State Lighting,” did you? Hundreds of LED aficionados and experts from all over the country will be coming to Raleigh for the workshop and to see the light(s)!tweettweet2

We hope you can make it to the #RaleighLED Ice Skating Tweetup to see some LED lighting in action and learn more about this technology in advance of the Department of Energy’s conference in Raleigh! Don’t forget to register!!

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Posted in For Fun | 4 Comments »

Boston tries LED streetlights, joins Cree LED City program

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

One of the oldest parks in the country is taking on some of the latest lighting technology. The City of Boston announced today that it is joining the Cree LED City ® program after recently installing LED streetlights along the “Mayor’s Walk” on Boston Common.

The demonstration project on Boston Common is the city’s way of trying out LED lighting as part of its overall efforts to “green” Boston.

The Common is one of the oldest parks in America, once serving as a British camp before the Revolutionary War. Back then, gas lighting had not even been invented. In fact, gas lighting didn’t spread to the United States until the early 1800s. It’s pretty cool to think that 200 years later, the park has turned into Boston’s testing ground for LED streetlights.

Boston Common in the fall. Photo by flickr user BostonPhotoSphere.

Boston Common in the fall. Photo by flickr user BostonPhotoSphere.

The LED City program is one way Cree helps cities give LED lighting a try, with the goal of speeding up adoption of this energy-efficient technology. Officials in cities that have never tried LED lighting often have a lot of questions about the technology.

At Cree, we help answer those questions and encourage cities to test LED lighting so they can see the results. It’s one thing to talk about how energy-efficient and beautiful LED lighting is. It’s another thing to actually see the savings and have the bright, even light shine on you.

Enter Boston. City officials decided to give LED lighting a try by installing LED streetlights made by six different manufacturers. Signs are posted along the path explaining how residents can submit comments about the lighting. Thumbs up that you can even tweet them your comments (@BostonLED).

LED streetlights consume 50 percent or less energy compared to traditional streetlights, and LED streetlights are designed to last up to five times longer. And since LED streetlights don’t have ‘bulb’s that require changing, the fixtures require little maintenance.

If you’d like your city to join the program, read up on these steps they need to take. Then contact your city council representative and start asking questions. It’s just another way you can join the LED Lighting Revolution.

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Posted in LED Cities | No Comments »