STORES Magazine - January 2009 - (Page 60)

NUTS AND BOLTS / ENERGY Saved by the Lights Energy-efficient LED installations at retail can make products pop and bills shrink BY FRED MINNICK M ost of us take power for granted, but retailers are keenly aware that energy is becoming more expensive. One strategy for reducing consumption that makes good environmental – and, increasingly, financial – sense is quite simple: change light bulbs. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, lighting consumes 22 percent of the country’s electricity and “represents a great opportunity for energy efficiency,” says Greg Merritt, director of corporate marketing for Cree, a manufacturer of semiconductors and devices that enhance the value of solid-state lighting, power and communications products by significantly increasing their energy performance and efficiency. “Most of the technologies in use today 60 STORES / JANUARY 2009 were invented a hundred years ago. We see the opportunity to bring new technology to bear to adjust the current needs for energy efficiency in a number of lighting applications.” Durham, N.C.-based Cree specializes in LED lighting, which can save 80 percent and 50 percent compared with incandescent and compact fluorescent lighting, respectively. Another attribute is that LEDs “have a very long service lifetime of at least 50,000 hours,” Merritt says. “To put that in perspective: if the LED light is on 12 hours a day, that’s more than 11 years.” What Cree has brought to the market are “very high-performance white LEDs” that can be used for almost any applications “from street lighting to down lighting to accent lighting.” Anchorage, Alaska, joined Cree’s LED City program, an international program that promotes the deployment of energy-efficient LED lighting. For a city that experiences 85 days a year with less than eight hours of daylight, good quality affordable lighting is an imperative. According to Cree, the fixtures from BetaLED are expected to use 50 percent less energy than Anchorage’s current WWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - January 2009

STORES Magazine - Jauary 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Mechanical Marvel P&G Invests in Ocado Now I Remember What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Breaking the Monotony Multi-Channel Concept2Watch E-Commerce Analytics Category Management IT Systems In-Store Technology IT Systems Communications Website Strategy Communications SOA Energy Video Surveillance Employee Theft Online Fraud Industry Perspective Loeb Retail Letter ARTS Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword End Cap

STORES Magazine - January 2009

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