Cree LED Revolution Blog

Cree and LED lighting are starting a revolution

Posts Tagged ‘LED Lighting Blog’

May LED lighting contest winner is racking up the energy savings with home renovations

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Minnesota resident Nicole Ronich is always on the lookout for LED lighting. Her father introduced her to LEDs years ago and lately she’s noticed that LED lighting is on the rise. She even recently learned that the Minnesota Twins’ Target Field features display boards lit with LEDs.

So when Ronich saw that Cree was giving away LED lights in a monthly photo contest, her thoughts drifted to her dimly-lit bathroom. She snapped this photo and later won the May LED Lighting giveaway.

May Photo Contest Winner

Nicole Ronich won the May LED lighting giveaway with this photo.

Here’s what she wrote about her bathroom lighting: “This is an old and hideous light fixture that is so inefficient. It also blows out light bulbs every other week. It gives my bathroom the shadow effect. I hate putting my make up on under it!”

I don’t blame her for not wanting to apply her makeup under this light. Hopefully her new energy-efficient LED lighting will improve lighting conditions in her home. Here’s what she wrote me when I e-mailed her to say she won the May photo contest:

“We have an older home and have been doing a ton of remodeling and updating of appliances to energy efficiency, improving insulation and replacing drafty doors, etc. It has been fun watching the utility bills drop! So, changing to a more efficient light bulb would be another step in the greener direction. My bathroom is going to be one of our last projects and to have better lighting would be awesome.”

If you’re jealous of Nicole’s new LED lighting, then enter our June LED Lighting giveaway for a chance to win some energy-efficient lights of your very own. Here’s how easy it is to enter:

Then, maybe I’ll be writing about your new lights soon! Congrats, Nicole!

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Posted in Revolution | 7 Comments »

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.

Indian Wells 009

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 »

Need proof that the LED Revolution is happening?

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

If you’re at work, sitting at your desk under the glow of fluorescent lights, you might be skeptical of the LED lighting revolution. You might be wondering: If this is really a revolution, then why am I stuck sitting under this icky light? When will my office, my home, my grocery store be lit with LED lights?

Well, I think this Bay Area Home Depot associate adequately summed it up when he said to FORTUNE magazine reporter Michael V. Copeland: “Buy, hey, it’s a revolution, and sometimes that takes time.”

LED lighting is out there. LED lights are initially being installed in produce and electronics sections at 650 Walmart stores, they’re illuminating the pedestrian entrance to the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge, even lighting up a dorm at N.C. State University.

So if you’re feeling skeptical (or eager like us because you want LED lighting everywhere right now), take a look at this article by senior FORTUNE writer Copeland. Here’s the lead to get you going:

“The $100 billion global lighting industry is undergoing radical change: New office buildings and retail outlets are abandoning fluorescent lighting in favor of LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, those tiny, energy-efficient, long-lasting, and blindingly bright points of light. Giants such as GE (GE) and Philips are shifting production from incandescent bulbs to LEDs. Even the local Home Depot (HD) — which today probably stocks only a couple of LED lighting products — will soon carry a bouquet of LED bulbs, ultimately edging out fluorescents and halogen lamps. By the end of the decade, analysts predict, LEDs will be the dominant source for commercial and residential lighting.”

Read the rest of it here.

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Posted in Revolution | 2 Comments »

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

Monday, January 11th, 2010

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:

ginnyfunnylook

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. :o

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.

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Posted in For Fun, Videos | 2 Comments »

Washington-based nonprofit wins five Cree LED lights in December photo contest

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Having your own office is pretty sweet. You get a door that you can close while you’re at work. An office provides a level of privacy many cubicle dwellers crave. So what if your cube was turned into your office? You’d probably be pretty happy, right? That’s what happened to Mark Wickman, who works for the nonprofit Opportunity Council in Washington.

Mark is the winner of the December Cree LED Lighting photo contest, winning five LED lights for his office. In Mark’s photo, he showed off his new office, which used to be two cubes, but they were torn out and converted into an office. The new construction meant he was “escaping dreary fluorescent ceiling tube fixtures” outside his office, but he really wanted some energy-efficient LED lights for his new digs.

December Winner

Mark is the production manager for the weatherization department at the Opportunity Council, a nonprofit that helps homeless and low-income families learn to become self-sufficient. I asked him to describe the lighting in his office now and he wrote: “mostly ceiling fluorescent tubes – dreary – with a few CFLs which provide no better light quality.”

Mark says the only LED lighting he’s ever tried before was in Christmas lights, flashlights and his bike light. I can’t wait until Mark screws in his new Cree LED lights. He chose our LRP-38 lamps (see photo below), which have a color rendering index (CRI) of 92. The CRI characterizes light sources ability to render colors accurately and can be between 0 and 100. A higher CRI means that colors are more true and the light is perceived as more pleasant. The CRI of fluorescent tubes is often around 72. So Mark is in for a change!

LRP38

A couple of other facts about Mark’s new LED lights … The Cree LRP-38 lamps are designed to last 50,000 hours. That means they could last 17 years if he keeps the lights on 8 hours a day, 7 days a week! And each LRP-38 uses 12 Watts of energy, but provides the equivalent light of a 50 to 90 Watt halogen bulb. So his new lights will also consume significantly less energy than traditional lighting!

Are you starting to get jealous of Mark? Don’t bother. Just snap a photo of bad lighting in your home or office and enter our January contest. We’ll be giving away five more energy-efficient Cree LED lights at the end of the month. You could win next!

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Posted in Revolution | 1 Comment »

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).

CaryMcDonaldsOldNewCaryMcdonalds

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 »