Lighting Maintenance | Lighting Retrofit » Lighting

Lighting Energy Calculators – GE Toolkit

Greg Crew — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:05:11 +0000

Figuring out how to calculate energy savings could be a bit difficult depending on the nature of your lighting retrofit. Lucky for us, many websites have an energy calculator tool. In this example, GE has a few nice calculators. Usable (at the very least) to those who have the most basic understanding of lighting and its terminology.

At GE Consumer & Industrial, we want to help lighting professionals and their customers save energy costs. See for yourself the difference these seven simple estimating tools can make.

Calculators:
Simple Energy Estimator – Watts Per Square Foot Estimator – Lighting Layout Estimator – Fixture Replacement Estimator – Dimming System Watts Estimator – Cost of Waiting Estimator – Simple Life-Cycle Cost Estimator – Lighting Calculators Continued

A&K Energy Conservation, Inc. | HQ:15552 US HWY 301, Dade City, FL, 33523 | 800-228-5241 | akenergy.com

Lighting Retrofit Earns Award for ‘Energy Project of the Year’

Greg Crew — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:40:02 +0000

It’s nice to see businesses getting recognition for doing significant alterations to their energy usage. In Fayetteville, TN, Fushi Copperweld Inc. did a retrofit from an HID (High Intensity Discharge) High Pressure Sodium fixture to a Fluorescent fixture.

In just one year, the facility will reduce its annual electricity usage for lighting by nearly 66%- 2.1 million kWh- a reduction which, combined with tax and maintenance savings, will yield a total savings of approximately $300,000. Fushi Copperweld projects the new lighting scheme will have paid for itself in just eleven months.

We noticed that the tax and maintenance savings were calculated in with the energy savings. This was VERY SMART.

FAYETTEVILLE, Tenn., March 25 /PRNewswire-Asia/ — The Center for Energy Efficiency (CEE) at Middle Tennessee State University has granted its 2010 award for “Energy Project of the Year” to Fushi Copperweld ( FSIN)’s wire manufacturing plant in Lincoln County, Tennessee.

Sponsored by the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the Association of Energy Engineers, the prestigious award recognizes businesses, individuals, or organizations that demonstrate innovation in their implementation of energy efficiency projects. Fushi Copperweld’s American operation was chosen to receive the award for having completed a total retrofit of the lighting grid at its 298,000 square-foot facility last August.

Lighting Retrofit Earns Award – Continued

A&K Energy Conservation, Inc. | HQ:15552 US HWY 301, Dade City, FL, 33523 | 800-228-5241 | akenergy.com

Toshiba says good-bye to incandescent era

Greg Crew — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:15:34 +0000

Add another nail in the coffin for incandescent lighting.

Incandescent to LED – Continued

Credit - CNET | Greentech

Toshiba announced Wednesday it has produced its last major run of incandescent lightbulbs.

The Japanese electronics manufacturer said the phaseout is part of a strategy to ultimately concentrate on LED (light-emitting diode) lighting products, though it will continue to produce certain specialty incandescent bulbs.

Incandescent lighting has been dwindling in use over the last five years in large part to citizen and government phase-out campaigns that include laws for an eventual ban on the sale of the electricity-guzzling light source. Many countries have already passed laws with deadlines looming.
Incandescent to LED – Continued

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) – Lighting Retrofit

Greg Crew — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:38:36 +0000

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) can be funded for energy saving and efficient lighting retrofit projects. It would be worth it to visit recovery.gov to see if your lighting retrofit project qualifies.

How does the Recovery Act work?

Twenty-eight different agencies – such as the Departments of Education; Health and Human Services; and Energy – have been allocated a portion of the $787 billion in Recovery funds. Each agency develops specific plans for how it will spend its Recovery Act funds. The agencies then award grants and contracts to state governments or, in some cases, directly to schools, hospitals, contractors, or other organizations. The agencies are required to file weekly financial reports on how they are spending the money and their specific activities related to Recovery funds. Starting in October 2009, recipients filed their first of regular quarterly reports on how they are spending the Recovery Act funds that they received.

Continue to recovery.gov

Department of Energy’s CALiPER Program

Greg Crew — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:04:55 +0000

When A&K Energy Conservation, Inc. meets with our vendors, and the LED topic comes up. There is a concern that the scores of rushed, untested, and unproven LED systems that make it to market will ruin an otherwise excellent technologies perception to the buying public. It is very important to make sure that you are buying a quality LED system. It can be tough to figure out who is good and who is not. The good news is that the Department of Energy has been paying attention to all of this and has developed a program to test the claims of these mfg’s. They call it the CALiPER Program for LEDs (SSL-solid state lighting).

What is CALiPER?
DOE’s SSL Commercially Available LED Product Evaluation and Reporting (CALiPER) program independently tests and provides unbiased information on the performance of commercially available SSL products. The test results guide DOE planning for ENERGY STAR® and technology procurement activities, provide objective product performance information to the public, and inform the development and refinement of standards and test procedures for SSL products.

– Continue

LED Light-Emitting Diode

Greg Crew — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:52:57 +0000

High power LEDs from Philips Lumileds Lighting Company mounted on a 21 mm star shaped base metal core PCB (image credit: wikipedia)

LED’s meteoric rise from a status or test light to spacial lighting has been nothing less than astonishing. LED’s (specifically HPLEDs) are emerging as a great new tool in the array of lighting available to the commercial, government and private sectors. As a lighting maintenance contractor, we have had the pleasure installing some of these new fixtures with great effect. The maintenance and energy savings are very attractive attributes when coupled with the right applications.

We have been told by those pioneering LED technology, that this is the future of lighting. Huge efforts and money have been spent advancing LEDs to the point where they are barely recognizable to it’s predecessors.

Wikipedia has what we think, a pretty well written resource for those wanting to brush up on the history and direction of LEDs.

“ light-emitting diode (LED) (pronounced /ˌɛl.iːˈdiː/^[1]) is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices, and are increasingly used for lighting. Introduced as a practical electronic component in 1962,^[2] early LEDs emitted low-intensity red light, but modern versions are available across the visible, ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, with very high brightness. – Continue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

Lighting Maintenace and Retrofit Company Informational Video

Greg Crew — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:04:02 +0000

A&K Energy Conservation Inc, was founded in 1967 as a Lighting Maintenance and Retrofit Company. We have enjoyed many years of servicing our customers through lighting service, planned group relamping, and through upgrades to new and more energy efficient lighting. We hold ourselves to the highest possible standards in the industry and are proud to produce a little introduction video to give you an idea of who we are and what we are about.

Watch Video in New Window