East Cleveland and GE Lighting Partner on Northeast Ohio’s First Major LED Streetlighting Installation
The City of East Cleveland is decreasing energy costs by replacing 45 standard-technology municipal streetlights with GE’s award-winning Evolve LED roadway streetlights. The project grows out of a long partnership between GE Lighting and East Cleveland, which has been the home of the unit’s headquarters for close to 100 years. A one-mile block along Noble Road serves as a demonstration to other municipalities of the benefits of a higher-efficiency lighting system.
Has the city of Cleveland ever considered solar lighting? With increases in crude oil prices (Oil rises to near $92 as global equities rally PABLO GORONDI – Associated Press Published: 01/04/11) and environmental and political concerns over coal and other polluting energy sources, solar energy is becoming more economically competitive. However, this is beside the point. Solar-powered lighting can be economically feasible now. Companies and cities are jumping on the LED retrofit bandwagon – but why is there not more talk of solar? Off-the-grid solar lights in areas with poor, or no, grid infrastructure can be cheaper to install than traditional lighting because of the avoided infrastructure development. There is also a new solar technology currently developing in my home-town of Boise, Idaho where solar-powered lights are actually tied to the electrical grid, feeding energy to the utilities during the day to off-set the costs of lighting at night. These lights generally use LED anyway (such as the GE evolve series). The combination of Solar power generation and LED lighting provide for enormous energy savings – a level that LED by itself will never reach. Anyway, I just think more people need to educate themselves about the benefits of solar electricity, specifically in the public lighting arena, so that we can influence government to actually pursue it. Look up Boise State University and the two LED On-Grid Solar Powered lights that they have installed as a pilot project. It is exciting technology that more people should be aware of.
How much energy is being saved with GE’s LED lights compared to the others? Is that a lighting increase is see in the photos?
How much cost involve to archive above result.
What time will be required to Return on Investment
Whether replacement done for light or energy saving aspects?
It has been a while since the original posts but I thought that I would provide some insight into the comments section. First the retrofit to LED technology is done specifically for energy reduction as you can obtain more lumens per what and provide better visual acuity then the current technologies in place. The electricity already exists, by changing the lamp technology to LED and reducing the Watt of the fixtures, you have a greater ROI. The stand alone solar lighting systems prove to have a good ROI for areas where current electrical lines are not readily available. This project already had electrical available and also is in an area where the lighting levels required for a standalone solar lighting system would not produce the required light levels. The utility interactive systems where you can offset the electrical costs with adding solar panels to the poles generally do not prove to have a high ROI as solar energy production is still higher per kwh. Utility interactive designs are done for alternate reasons. Reasons such as the utility is mandated to produce 20% of their energy from a renewable source, use by corporations that may want to advertise their green choice, or where back up security is desired if the grid fails. There is a place in the market for solar lighting but it is not designed to be the best answer for all applications. The project looks great and I am glad that LED’s have evolved and are still evolving to make their way into the exterior and roadway lighting applications.
Cities and town can now have LED Street Lights Retrofitted without asking for stimulus money or grants , Kardings offers lease to own LED street lights with no out of pocket added cost.