Dec 24 2008

Red, White, Blue and Green All Over

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Thousands of people have finally solved an important puzzle: How to be red, white, blue and green all over? With energy-saving Light Emitting Diode (LED) holiday lights.

At my local Walgreen's, the store manager told me they sold out of all their LED holiday lights this year. In Sacramento, an Ace Hardware store manager told the Sacramento Bee, "They fly off the hook."

At Amazon.com, 21 of its 25 top-selling holiday lights are reportedly LED products.

In the nation's capital, the National Christmas Tree is adorned with 37,000 LED lights. Not to be outdone, MillerCoors brewing company has strung 15 miles of holiday LED lights--a total of 200,000--synchronized to music. I don't know if that counts as "green," but the company says it has cut its holiday lighting costs by 60 percent.

Those of the Jewish faith are going green as well, with strings of blue LED lights to decorate their Hanukkah Bush.

There's an obvious reason for their rapidly growing popularity: LED lights use far less electricity than incandescent bulbs, last up to ten times longer, and produce almost no heat, thus reducing fire hazards.

PG&E estimates that the cost to power a string of 300 LED lights over the holidays will run only about $3, compared to $30 for a similar string of mini incandescent lights. At that rate, it will only take a year or two to recoup the higher purchase cost of the LEDs.

Fortunately, LED lights have applications that extend far beyond the holidays. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy recently reported that LED lights saved 8.7 trillion watt hours of electricity in 2007, about 11 percent of all power consumed in lighting. Wider use of LED lights in other applications, including indoor lighting, could eliminate the need for 27 giant (1 gigawatt) coal-fired power plants, the report concluded.

LEDs are already widely used in outdoor applications like traffic signals, roadside signs and street lights PG&E and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission have partnered to test energy-efficient LED street lights, which are 40 percent more efficient than high pressure sodium vapor lights and produce a whiter, brighter light. (You can check them out in front of PG&E headquarters on Beale Street.)  

Many other cities are following suit. Anchorage, Alaska is retrofitting all municipal roadway lights with LED fixtures. The Big Apple is studying the possibility of replacing all 300,000 of its street lamps with the super efficient semiconductor lights. 

Though the lights themselves run cool, the LED lighting industry is becoming a hot market for venture capital and corporate acquisitions--no surprise given that the global lighting market is worth some $75 billion a year.

Luminus Devices in Massachusetts raised $72 million earlier this year, said to be the biggest funding round ever received by an LED company. Local Redwood City startup Superbulbs, though still in stealth mode, reportedly plans to introduce LED bulbs that look like standard incandescents but use 30 percent less energy even than compact fluorescent bulbs--and without any mercury.  Its main backer, VantagePoint Venture Partners, is also a funder of such cleantech startups as Tesla, Better Place, and BrightSource Energy. 

Industry giants are getting into the act, too. In the last three years, Philips has acquired no fewer than four LED companies. The bulb kings at GE have also seen the light. They recently said they have suspended development of a next-generation incandescent bulb "to place greater focus and investment on what we believe will be the ultimate in energy efficient lighting -- light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)."

The big problem, of course, is still cost. Recently announced LED replacements for standard 60- and 100-watt incandescent bulbs cost $100 and $150 respectively, enough to make any customer think twice. But just as LED televisions have plummeted in price, so too will the bulbs. Next year, expect to see a lot more LED lights under the tree, not just on it.

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"PG&E" refers to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation.