Tag Archives: LED light

Do Your Part On Earth Day With LED Lighting

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LED Source Faces of Climate Change

So what do Earth Day and LED Lighting have in common? To answer this question, we first must understand how Earth Day began.

Earth Day began as a grass roots campaign in the U.S. during the 1960’s and has grown to be a worldwide social and environmental awareness movement.

Earth Day participation has inspired many local and national political policies, including the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of Endangered Species Act.

Today, Earth Day is when we can reflect on our planet, the environment and find ways to become more energy-efficient and reduce our carbon footprint.

Often overlooked, LED lighting can reduce greenhouse gas carbon emissions dramatically. In fact the United States Department of Energy has stated the wide spread use of LED lighting can defer 246 million metric tons of carbon over the next several years. That is because the power plants would burn less fossil fuel to power LEDs over incandescent or fluorescent lighting used today.

For each Earth Day participant who purchases LED lighting for their home or business, the benefits are realized immediately through improved lighting conditions and energy bill savings each month.

The timing for switching to LED could not be better. Recent enactments of the Energy Policy Act have already banned the100W and 75W incandescent from production and the 60W and 40W will soon follow. LEDs also have zero levels of mercury, which is typical for compact fluorescent lamps (CFL). Just imagine all the mercury that ends up in our landfills from improper disposal of these CFL bulbs. By making the switch to LED lighting, not only would less lamps end up in landfill, LEDs are recyclable and contain no mercury.

Recently LED manufacturers have helped Earth Day celebrants become energy efficient by lowering the cost of LED lighting, which can do wonders for Mother Nature. Rebates and incentives, if available, will drive the cost down even further.

So make everyday Earth Day and switch the lighting in your home or business to LED. You will not only save money, you be doing your part in helping the planet.

For more information on LED Lighting, contact the Experts at LED Source.

Earth Hour 2013

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Earth HourEver want to do something nice for Mother Nature? Turn off those lights! Earth Hour 2013 will be talking place Saturday March 23, from 8:30 – 9:30 pm local time. For this symbolic hour, all non-essential lighting is to be turned off.

Initially organized in 2006 and originally called “ The Big Flick” by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to protest deforestation in Africa, but now Earth Hour has gone global and is celebrated from Sydney Australia, to New York City and is supported by 400 Cities and locations on all 7 Continents.

Golden Gate Bridge Earth HourBusinesses and organizations around the globe such as CB Richard Ellis Realty, the National Hockey League, Golden Gate Bridge, Manchester United, Hilton Hotels, Girl Scouts, the UN Environment Program, the International Trade Union, Empire State Building, Philips and Ikea, also do their part for Earth Hour.

Eiffel Tower Earth HourMost cities participate by “Turning off the Lights” and consequently the energy savings documented by participation in Earth Hour has been dramatic. The offset of carbon dioxide by reducing lighting energy has been in the thousands of metric tons. For conscientious citizens participating, Earth Hour has been a grass-roots movement promoting energy efficiency.

Earth Hour teaches us that reduction in energy costs associated with lighting are robust. It has a positive impact on the environment and saving energy is a concern shared by all people of all nations.

Empire State Building Earth HourAlso compelling is the inclusion of Philips Lighting on the list of supporters and endorsers. Philips has initiated a strong push to replace existing lighting around the globe with LED lighting. LED lighting can reduce lighting consumption by up to 90% and translates to a financial reward.

So go ahead turn off those lights during your local Earth Hour time and purchase a few LED lamps for your home or business. Mother Nature thanks you and so will your wallet. Maybe next year we can call this event LED hour!

For more information on LED lighting, contact the LED lighting experts at LED Source.

Would LEDs Have Kept Us In The Light At The Super Bowl?

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Super Bowl Lights OutFor Baltimore Raven’s fans, today is the best day ever winning the Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers 34 to 31. However, it could have easily gone the other way with help from what is now called the ‘Superdome Blackout.’

During the third quarter for more than a half-hour, the lights went out in New Orleans for what is yet another Super Bowl malfunction. For 34 minutes, officials were trying to figure out what exactly went wrong.  Why did the power go out and yet some of the lights were on for half of the stadium? Even the CBS audio for Jim Nantz and Phil Simms went down. Rumors are endless on the Internet from the 49ers causing the outage to disrupt the Raven’s lead to a possible cyber terrorist attack on the power grid.  Even going as far as saying the power was handled by a Venezuelan company called Corpoelec and they deliberately caused the outage. Others just state that Beyonce’s halftime performance was too ‘electrifying.’

Super Bowl LightsOther reports say that the stress on the New Orleans power-grid was just to demanding and simply went out, causing yet another strike against the city still struggling to regain its infamous name since hurricane Katrina. Auxiliary power kept the playing field from going total dark but escalators, credit-card machines and all the concourses were only lit by emergency lighting. Even halftime host James Brown said a ‘power surge caused the outage.’

FBI officials have since ruled out terrorism and New Orleans fire department dismissed any reports that a fire caused the outage so the question remains. Some reports go on to say that a piece of equipment from Entergy New Orleans, the city’s power company, sensed an abnormality in the system and shut itself down as a safeguard. So for now the speculation remains.

So if the power supply required was to great at the Superdome then it lends to ask why did they not use a more energy-efficient light source like LED lighting? Most stadiums currently use 1000-watt metal halide Sportslighters to light their field. LED lighting manufacturers are currently testing fixtures that will lower the wattage to around 250-watts, savings 750-watts per fixture. In addition, the LED Sportslighters are instant-on, thus no longer requiring the warm-up time of 15 minutes that is associated with the Sportslighters of today.

Let’s hope that next year the Super Bowl will make a statement and move towards LED lighting and keep us in the light instead of the dark.

For more information on LED lighting, visit the LED lighting Experts™ at LED Source.

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Lighting the Empire State Building and Miami Tower with LEDs

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Empire State Building LED LightingWhat does it take to light an iconic skyscraper today? Look no further than the recent LED lighting upgrades for the exterior of the Miami Tower and Empire State Building. Conventional lighting consisting of metal halide fixtures no longer can compete to the energy-efficiency and versatility of LED lighting. In the past for a building’s exterior to have color, expensive colored gels had to manually be installed to fixtures. This was not only costly to have maintenance crews perform the task; it also was very limited in the colors available, and forget about the possibility of changing colors on demand.

Miami Tower LED Lighting LED SourceNow with state-of-the-art LED lighting, color changing can now be done at the push of a button from an iPhone, and the color palette has increased from a handful to now over 16 million color combinations.

A trend is underway with city skylines being reinvented with LED lighting. Iconic buildings such as the Miami Tower, a 47-story building in the heart of downtown Miami, and one of the most famous buildings in the world, the Empire State Building, have been resurrected thanks to LED lighting.

Miami Tower LED Lighting LED SourceThe Miami Tower underwent a transformation with their exterior lighting in September as part of a broader initiative by building owner, Jones Lang LaSalle. The Tower was previously lit with 382 metal halide fixtures consuming 878,519 kWh annually. The new LED lighting system reduced the number of lights to 216 using Philips Color Kinetics ColorReach Powercore and ColorGraze Powercore fixtures. Energy consumption was reduced by 807,668 kWh annually, which represents a total energy savings of almost 92%.

Miami Tower ColorReach LED SourceWith the new LED lighting system, almost $260,000 annually in related energy and operating costs has been saved.  Even with these incredible benefits, what really sets it apart is the ability to use the building’s exterior almost as a canvas to create beautiful color changing transitions and images such as the American Flag. The possibilities are almost limitless with LED lighting.

Alicia Keys LED Lighting Empire State BuildingNot to be out done, the Empire State Building, the world’s most famous office building, recently changed its traditional fixtures to Philips Color Kinetics LED lights. It officially unveiled the innovative LED lighting system in a coordinated live 5 station on-air radio and internet broadcast, synchronized to the music of Grammy® Award winner Alicia Keys. The custom light show on top of the Empire State Building created a stunning event for all of New York, and the world, to see. From color changing transitions and cross-fades, to strobes and bursts of light, the new LED system delivered superior light and vibrancy levels in real-time, unlike the previous floodlights.

The dawn of a new era for architectural lighting is upon us. LED lighting is not only cost-effective; it allows buildings to stand out from the crowd with a range of colors only limited by imagination.

Watch the Empire State Building LED Lighting Event with Alicia Keys.

Watch the Miami Tower LED Lighting Case Study Video.

Reinvent a city skyline with help from the LED lighting experts at LED Source®.

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Skyscrapers Going Green with LED Lighting

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As power plants struggle to keep up with the demand of the world’s electricity requirements, it is essential that the biggest consumers of electricity, such as commercial buildings, find various way to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint. Retrofitting a skyscraper with energy-efficient LED lighting can seem like a daunting task, but the benefits and savings can certainly outweigh the initial expense. In many cases the ROI for an LED lighting upgrade is less than 3 years and “Green Buildings” can attract the most environmentally conscious tenants.

Miami Tower DaytimeWith lighting being responsible for 35% of energy consumption in buildings, finding ways for building owners to lower operating costs while being environmentally responsible has become a priority.

Solid state LED lighting not only provides better performance than most conventional light sources, it has the added benefits of increased durability and longevity. It also lowers the environmental impact especially when compared to incandescent, halogen, metal halide and fluorescent lighting.

Tenants and building owners looking to become more green friendly have also noticed that by upgrading to LED lighting, not only are they reducing their carbon footprint, they are also lowering operating expenses. Today, there are many tax benefits and rebates being offered by both federal and local governments for building looking to go green. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) even offers incentives to buildings looking improve their energy efficiency.

Miami Tower Metal Halide FixturesOne example of a skyscraper making the switch to LED lighting is the 47-story Miami Tower in downtown Miami, Florida. The building’s previous exterior lighting system consisted of 382 metal halide fixtures consuming 878,519 kWh annually. To achieve an ever-changing color effect, it required the manual changing of high-maintenance and expensive color gels for each fixture.

Miami Tower LED SourceLED Source® worked with the team at Philips Color Kinetics to provide a new LED lighting system using the ColorReach Powercore and ColorGraze Powercore fixtures. Using only 216 fixtures, new LED lights have a color palette of 16 million colors and can be changed at the touch of a button.

It is estimated that the Tower will have an annual reduction of 807,688 kWh – a total energy savings of 92%, equivalent to 1.2 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, Jones Lang LaSalle, the building’s owner and Management Company, would subsequently save nearly $260,000 annually in energy, maintenance and operating costs.

Miami Tower LED SourceThrough the use of LED lighting, city skylines are able to reinvent themselves while becoming environmentally conscious. If other skyscrapers around the globe took the same initiative as the Miami Tower, imagine the savings and benefits to the planet that would be achieved from LED lighting.

Switch Your T12 Fluorescents To LEDs Before It’s Too Late

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We get tons of inquiries here about people looking to replace their old, worn out or dead lights with the new, latest and greatest LEDs.  Sometimes it’s for cosmetic reasons, sometimes it’s to save money, and sometimes it’s to go green.  If you currently have T12 fluorescent fixtures in your space, you can accomplish all 3 goals in one fell swoop.

LED Source® carries multiple lines of 1×4, 2×2 and 2×4 LED fluorescent fixture replacements.  We have several excellent options from Cree.  They are the CR14, CR22 and CR24 respectively.  They come in a very attractive package and at a very attractive price.  Check out the picture, look how sharp that fixture looks.  Go one, check it out, I’ll wait.  Not only is it a looker but lasts longer and that saves you money.  The LED lamp will last over 13 years if you use it 12 hours a day.  T12 lamps claim to last almost 3 years at that amount of usage, but we all know that they’re very dim if they make it that long and usually burn out well before that from the on/off cycling they undergo.  That doesn’t even take into account replacing the ballasts in your system every few years.  Add up the costs of the parts and labor to do that and you’re looking at a significant maintenance cost.  Plus, T12 lamps are going to be phased out as early as late 2012 and won’t even be available!

Not only do you save on lamp and ballast replacement costs, but you will also save on your electrical bill every month.  The typical T12, 4 lamp fixture uses 172 Watts of power between the lamps and ballast.  The Cree CR24 equivalent uses only 50 Watts.  So, not only are you saving money and time not having to replace components, but you are also using 71% less energy per fixture.  That’s significant savings on just a few fixtures; imagine if you have hundreds or thousands of these in your facility what the savings would be.

And finally, if you’re looking to go green, LED is the lighting solution for you.  They are mercury free (all fluorescent lamps have mercury in them and must be specially disposed of), recyclable and don’t contain the dangerous chemicals that are in other types of lighting. With the combination of easy maintenance, cost savings and excellent good looks, there is no better solution on the planet than to replace your fluorescent lighting with LED fixtures from LED Source®.

Give LED Source® a call today at 866.900.4533 and speak with one of our LED lighting experts.