SAVE ENERGY

Excerpts from the Raleigh News and Observer August 14, 2009.

Lighting consumes 22 percent of electricity in the United States. The DOE predicts that solid-state lighting -- which uses semiconducting materials to convert electricity into light, and includes LEDs -- has the potential to reduce energy use for lighting by one-third by 2030. That's the equivalent of saving the output of 40 large (1,000-megawatt) power plants, the greenhouse gas emissions of 47 million cars and $30 billion.

"... in an office building it's probably 40 percent, and so if you reduce your lighting energy consumption by a large fraction, the savings will be huge," said James Brodrick, who leads the DOE's solid-state lighting program.

A fact sheet from Brodrick's office says this about LEDs: "In the coming decade, they will become a key to affordable net- zero energy buildings, buildings that produce at least as much energy annually as they use from the grid."

"There's an enormous and exciting potential, but we have a long way to go before we see anything besides directional lighting," said Jeffrey P. Harris, the vice president for programs at the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit group that promotes energy efficiency.
Even so, LEDs already are used to light offices, hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

 

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The DOE predicts that LEDs will have better performance capability than fluorescent lighting in the next few years, and that they'll continue to improve after that. They're now comparable to fluorescent fixtures in efficiency, and the DOE says its Energy Star LEDs last two to five times as long.
Chuck Swoboda, the chairman and chief executive officer of Cree Inc. of Durham, a leading company in LED lighting, said that commercial use of LEDs would drive down costs, and that a lower initial cost plus the value of energy savings would make them attractive. "It's not that different from the argument of why you should put insulation in a home," he said.
LEDs have other advantages: They can be dimmed, don't emit heat, don't contain mercury -- unlike compact fluorescents -- and can produce warm-toned light.