News Updates for the Week of November 18

1.      Hundreds of LED Lights Illuminate NYC’s 1 World Trade Center Spire - Hundreds of red, white and blue LED modules are illuminating lower Manhattan as officials test the lights atop 1 World Trade Center. The port authority of New York and New Jersey said Friday the beacon is packed with nearly 300 modules and their glow can be seen for up to 50 miles. The beacon and spire together stand 408 feet tall and bring the building, formerly called the Freedom Tower, to its symbolic height of 1,776 feet and is deemed the nation's tallest building. 11/08 AP

2.      Con Ed 2012 Rates Highest of Any Major US Utility - Con Ed's 2.1 million residential customers in New York City and Westchester County paid an average of 25.65 cents per kilowatt hour in 2012, the data released Friday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That's more than twice the national average price of 11.88 cents per kilowatt hour. Con Ed said in a statement that more than 25 percent of the bill consists of government-imposed taxes and fees. Long Island Power Authority customers also paid some of the country's highest rates at 19.03 cents per kilowatt hour last year. 11/12 AP

3.      Status of the LED Industry 2013 - Growth of the LED industry has come initially from the small display application and has been driven forward by the LCD display application. In 2012, General Lighting has surpassed all other applications, representing nearly 39% of total revenue of packaged LEDs. Indeed, the LED TV crisis of 2011 (following an overestimation of the market) had the benefit of decreasing LED prices and intensifying the competitive environment. As a matter of fact, LED-based lighting product prices have decreased more rapidly than expected, increasing the penetration rate of the technology. Yole Développement estimates packaged LED will reach a market size of $13.9B in 2013 and will peak to $16B by 2018. Growth will be driven mainly by General Lighting applications (45% to 65% of total revenue during this period), completed by display applications. http://www.researchandmarkets.com/publication/m9qh8qc/status_of_the_led_industry_2013  

4.      Philips On ‘The Future of Light’ - Based upon expert interviews and more than 50 case studies, the report summarizes 12 trends which have been grouped into four themes showing the way lighting can be used to create experiences, tell stories, convey information and promote wellness. The PSFK report highlights projects which collectively demonstrate the numerous benefits of light, ranging from healthy sleep patterns and feelings of safety, through to macro issues, including the readdress of resource scarcity and climate change. http://electricalcontractor.com/?p=11760

5.      Christmas Lights Are Going Green - The shift is showing up at stores, which are selling more of the efficient LED lights. Wal-Mart is devoting half of its shelf space for Christmas lights to LEDs and offering a string of 50 mini LED lights for $5, down from $6.30 last year.  Costco is selling no incandescent Christmas lights at all. General Electric, which has peddled holiday lighting for more than a century, expects that two out of every five strings of lights sold this year will be LEDs. 11/11 The Kansas City Star

6.      Osram LEDs to Light The Sistine Chapel's Michelangelo Frescoes - The project, involving custom-designed fixtures optimized for beam control and with a color spectrum that will highlight the pigmentation in the frescoes, will be completed next year, although a pilot project entitled LED4Art has already proven the concept. LED-based lighting will enable higher illuminance levels on iconic artwork in famed Rome cathedral while preserving the historically-significant work and utilizing 60% less energy. http://ledsmagazine.com/news/10/11/7

7.      tED Magazine Prepares to Celebrate Its 50th Anniversary - In 2014, tED magazine will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Each month, the magazine will have a special feature looking back on 50 years of bringing you news about electrical distribution industry. http://www.tedmag.com

8.      MaxLite Launches Mobile Website - To meet the rapidly changing needs of customers and other lighting professionals that work in the field, MaxLite® has launched an easy-to-navigate mobile website that dynamically displays data sheets, images and information from the company's extensive product library for use with any type of smartphone. Rather than using downloads, the website will provide information dynamically and instantaneously. MaxLite's mobile website is updated daily with new product and application images, specification information, promotions and other corporate information that is vital to its distributors, specifiers and sales representatives. View the mobile website from your personal computer at http://m.maxlite.com

9.      Eaton LED Solutions Improve Lighting for Georgia Auto Dealership - Power management company Eaton and its Cooper Lighting division are proving that LED fixtures can provide more than just energy savings with a recent project for Georgia-based car dealership, Nalley Honda-Buick-GMC-Isuzu located in Brunswick. To showcase automobiles and reduce energy expenses, Eaton's Cooper Lighting business teamed up with Georgia Power to install 76 Streetworks Galleon LED fixtures, resulting in impressive illumination and an overall energy savings of 60 percent. 11/15 http://www.tedmag.com

10.  Top U.S. Organizations Using Most Green Power -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its updated lists of the top Green Power Partnership (GPP) organizations choosing to use clean, renewable electricity. The top 10 partners appearing on the Top 100 list include:

1)      Intel Corporation

2)      Microsoft Corporation

3)      Kohl's Department Stores

4)      Whole Foods Market

5)      Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

6)      U.S. Department of Energy

7)      Staples

8)      City of Houston, TX

9)      Starbucks Company-Owned Stores

10)  Apple Inc.

For more on the Top Rankings visit www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/index.htm.

11.  One-day Immersion in LED Lighting Education and Solutions - For specifiers of commercial, architectural and decorative LED lighting products. http://www.ledspecifiersummit.com/

12.  ASHRAE/IES Publish 2013 Energy Standard 90.1-2013 - Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, incorporates 110 addenda, reflecting changes made through the public review process. Appendix F gives brief descriptions and publication dates of the addenda to 90.1-2010 reflected in this new edition. The most significant lighting changes include improvements to daylighting and daylighting controls, space-by-space lighting power density limits, thresholds for toplighting and revised controls requirements and format. http://www.techstreet.com/ashrae/products/1865966

      

      13.  Raleigh Orthopaedic Selects Cree LED Lighting - Raleigh Orthopaedic Clinic, one of the city's largest orthopaedic practices, chose LED lighting from Cree, Inc. for the facility's new state-of-the-art headquarters and surgery center. The North Carolina facility installed more than 1,000 Cree® CR Series LED architectural troffers throughout the 98,000-square-foot clinic. According to Raleigh Orthopaedic, the newly installed LED troffers will decrease the clinic's lighting energy usage by 54 percent compared to outdated fluorescent technologies. http://www.tedmag.com

14.  Chicago City Infrastructure Trust Eyes ComEd Efficiency Fund - The money would come from ComEd customers who pay, on average, $1.24 a month on their bills for energy efficiency programs. The fund totals almost $160 million annually, money that currently is used for programs such as swapping out light bulbs and providing rebates on appliances.  11/12 Chicago Tribune

News Updates for the Week of October 28

1.      LED Lighting Creeps Toward Tipping Point - The overall project cost when LA changed out 140,000 street lights to LED was estimated at $57 million, which was paid for with a combination of power rebates, the Street Light Assessment Fund, and a $40 million loan that will be paid back over seven years with the savings generated by the end technology. Despite significant energy savings of this sort, LED lighting will only account for about 5 percent of all the technologies used in retrofit projects this year, estimates Navigant Research. By 2017, however, its share will probably hit 40 percent; it will pass the halfway mark by 2021. One big factor is lower LED pricing, which is helping compress the payback periods. 10/24 Forbes

2.      NEMA Publishes NEMA LSD 67-2013 Low Mercury Controllable Fluorescent Systems - NEMA LSD 67 discusses technical tradeoffs associated with reduced mercury dosing in fluorescent lighting systems and their environmental impacts. NEMA members are committed to providing fluorescent lighting systems that allow lamps to be controlled to save energy, while reducing the mercury content in the lamps to the extent that it is technically possible without sacrificing functionality. http://www.nema.org/Standards/Pages/Low-Mercury-Controllable-Fluorescent-Systems.aspx

3.      Philips CEO Says Company Is Winning Market Share With $5 LEDs  - Frans van Houten did not give a specific figure on the company's global market share. But the report showed LED lighting sales grew by 33 percent from a year ago in the three months through September. They accounted for 30 percent of the 2.08 billion euros ($2.85 billion) in lighting sales Philips had in the quarter. Van Houten said Philips is now offering consumer LEDs in the U.S. for $5 at Home Depot and in partnerships with several major utility companies. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/philips-winning-market-share-lighting-084115754.html

4.      DOE Publishes New Report on Color Stability of LED Lighting Products - The U.S. DOE has published a new report, Color Maintenance of LEDs in Laboratory and Field Applications. Although concern for parametric failure of LED lighting products has largely been focused on lumen maintenance, color shift is a cause of early failure for some products, especially in applications where visual appearance is critical. The report discusses field data from DOE's GATEWAY program showing that many LED lamps installed in museums have changed color beyond a reasonable tolerance well before their rated lifetimes were reached, and laboratory data from DOE's CALiPER program indicating that many early LED products shifted beyond acceptable tolerances in as short a span of time as a few thousand hours. The report is available: www.ssl.energy.gov/gatewaydemos_results.html

5.      NSF Announces SBIR/STTR Funding Opportunity - The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a funding opportunity for its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs that may be of interest to the solid-state lighting community. NSF SBIR and STTR programs provide non-dilutive seed money for startups and small businesses in almost any sector. Initial grants (Phase I) of the current funding opportunity provide $150,000 for six months. Awardees can compete for a Phase II grant, which provides $750,000 for two years. The current SBIR and STTR Phase I solicitations have deadlines of December 2 and December 4, respectively. For more information, visit www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/sbir

6.     RAB Lighting Earns IMARK Supplier of the Year Award - RAB Lighting, a manufacturer of LED lighting, was recently named 2013 IMARK Supplier of the Year.  This is the second consecutive year that RAB Lighting has been awarded this distinction by IMARK members.  The criteria used in the selection process includes annual sales growth and overall performance; marketing support for IMARK programs, new product promotions and communications activities; member training through IMARK University; and creative efforts to serve new members. www.imarkgroup.com

7.      Webinar: Pedestrian-Friendly Nighttime Lighting - On Tuesday, November 19, the U.S. DOE Solid-State Lighting Program will host a 90-minute live webinar entitled Pedestrian-Friendly Nighttime Lighting at 1:00 p.m. ET.  Presenter Naomi Miller of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will address color rendering (softness and warmth), safety (visibility and face recognition), and adaptation (sleeping, star-filled skies and other concerns). DOE SSL website

8.      LED Specifier Summit - Offers key education in LED lighting products and practices, geared toward architects, lighting designers, engineers, interior designers and other specifiers of LED lighting. All sessions are approved for AIA, IDCEC and GBCI continuing education and earn CEU credit. Register at: http://www.prereg.net/2013/ledss/.