Cree LED Revolution Blog

Cree and LED lighting are starting a revolution

Posts Tagged ‘utility’

LIPA brings LED lighting rebates to Lucky Long Island residents

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Cree is celebrating Energy Awareness Month with a series of blog posts about ways Cree and our products are helping save energy.

LIPA, the Long Island Power Authority, has been at the forefront of energy-efficiency for years. This forward-thinking, progressive utility, based in Uniondale, N.Y., has long promoted LED lighting technologies to customers and businesses in its service territory.  A non-profit municipal electric provider, LIPA provides electric service to more than 1.1.million customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties and the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, and it is the third largest municipal electric utility in the nation in terms of customers served.

LIPA currently offers a wide variety of incentives on ENERGY STAR® and DesignLights Consortium (DLC) qualified LED replacement bulbs and fixtures, through its Efficiency Long Island Program. Efficiency Long Island is a 10-year, customer-funded energy efficiency program started in January 2009. The program offers a wide array of rebates and initiatives to its customers for energy efficient products and /or projects.

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After all, the only thing better than an LED lamp or fixture is a less expensive LED lamp or fixture! And, what’s good for customers (reduced energy usage and reduced costs) is good for LIPA (potentially preventing the need to build more power plants).

Through the Efficiency Long Island program, LIPA is aiming for a peak electrical demand reduction of more than 500 Megawatts by 2018. For non-power-plant experts, that is the equivalent of deferring or eliminating one large or two medium-sized power plants on Long Island.

According to LIPA, “The Efficiency Long Island program is the most cost-effective resource option currently available to our customers. It is estimated that implementation of Efficiency Long Island will reduce CO2 emissions by about 12 million metric tons compared to the CO2 emissions that would be produced from new power plants burning natural gas. This is equivalent to removing 2.5 million cars from Long Island roads.”

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A number of big retailers, including The Home Depot and Costco, as well as smaller area stores participate in LIPA’s LED Lighting program, providing discounts on popular lights used in commercial applications, including downlights and directional lights, like PAR-38 bulbs. LIPA also has an online store where residential customers can easily purchase lighting from leading LED manufacturers. A LIPA resident can purchase Cree’s best-selling CR6 downlight at a discount of more than 50 percent off typical retail price. Talk about incentive to change!

So we at Cree tip our hat to LIPA. It’s great to have progressive utilities as LED Revolutionaries with us. Onward!

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Posted in Cree, Energy Awareness Month | 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 »