Lighting For Less: Energy Efficient Lighting Options
By Matt Siegel, Director of WNC Green Building Council

For the past 120 years, the incandescent light bulb has been lighting our homes and offices. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that technology developed over the past 10 years can help cut lighting costs 30-60 percent, enhance lighting quality, and reduce environmental impacts. With the introduction of Compact Florescent Light bulbs (CFL) and Light Emitting Diodes (LED), we all have reason to change out our lights.  When CFL's were first introduced, they were costly and didn't always provide quality lighting. Today, the price of a 13W CFL often starts at just a dollar and the quality of lighting has greatly improved.  For a light that's on for only three hours per day, the payback for changing to a CFL can be as little as four months. For a light that's on for ten hours a day, such as in a business or a porch light on all night, the payback is about one month.

Compact florescent light bulbs produce less heat than incandescent bulbs, last up to ten times longer and use 75 percent less energy, which equals benefits to the environment and your pocketbook.  CFL's are also available as spotlights, floodlights, three-way, dimmable lights and are available in many wattages. If every person in North Carolina installed just one CFL that was on for only three hours per day, the energy savings would be over a million kWh and $100,000 each and every day. With 6 Billion dollars leaving the state each year for energy resources, this would help keep at least part of that in our local economy.

In a 32-page article on renewable energy in the August 2005 issue of National Geographic Magazine, it was stated that just putting in one CFL would eliminate the need to burn 500 pounds of coal, over the life of the bulb.   In addition to the economic savings, one home with 50 CFL's would eliminate the need to burn 25,000 pounds of coal.

The newest type of energy efficient lighting is Light Emitting Diodes (LED) technology, which use 90% less electricity than an incandescent bulb, last over 50,000 hours and give off little heat. Currently, ENERGY STAR qualified traffic signals and exit signs use LED's. Due to a rapid increase in usage, the price of LED's is becoming very practical, especially for commercial applications. Since exit signs are on 24 hours per day, changing to an LED exit sign is a very smart move. With LED exit signs using on 44 kWh per year versus 350 kWh for incandescent exit signs, the payback for changing to an LED sign is about six months.

Located in Raleigh, LED City™ initiative is an expanding community of government and industry parties working to evaluate, deploy and promote LED lighting technology across the full range of municipal infrastructure. LED-based lighting can save 40 to 70 percent of the electricity a city uses for certain lighting applications such as parking garage, parking lot, outdoor public area, street and portable lighting.

In January of 2007, the City of Raleigh implemented its first pilot project on the third level of the Avery C. Upchurch Government Complex parking garage. This was the first LED City™ initiative between the City of Raleigh and Cree Inc. to save tax dollars and protect the environment. The City of Raleigh, with the help of Cree Inc. and Progress Energy, predict that the 141 LED fixtures installed in the parking garage could produce electricity savings of 46,720 kilowatt-hours per year. Due to the long lifespan of LED's, the savings in maintenance cost each year will result in additional $3,000.  Thus, the total savings will be $6,200 annually resulting in a seven year payback on the initial $42,000 investment. Toronto and Ann Arbor, MI, that plan on converting 100 percent of each city's lights to LED's, are also LED City™ participants.


With initiatives like Energy Star's Change a Light Campaign and the LED City™ initiative, our future for energy efficient lighting is looking bright!

According to the Department of Energy
In the next 20 years, rapid adoption of LED lighting in the U.S. can:
-- reduce electricity demands from lighting by 62%
-- eliminate 258 million metric tons of carbon emissions
-- avoid building 133 new power plants
-- anticipate financial savings that could exceed $115 billion
( www.LEDCity.org )
If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.
( http://www.energystar.gov )

Resources:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/states/alternatives/lighting_daylighting.cfm
http://www.energystar.gov
http://www.ledcity.org