The Observation Deck

Read in the USA Today about cities changing to LED lights to save money on their Electric. It appears that the savings in electric is paid back over just a few years. Then I picked up a Light up Lakewood flyer in downtown Lakewood.

So I had a few questions: (Mr. Call, I'm counting on you)

1) How much does Lakewood's electric bill go up in the Month of December due to Holiday lighting?

2) Has anyone investigated the potential savings of LED lighting?

Granted there is a cost of changing to the LED lights - but would this be better for Lakewood from a 1) Cost standpoint and 2) an environmental standpoint?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... ghts_N.htm

Would this be a good project for an environmental group to handle - maybe sell Christmas ornaments for a fund to replace the city's electric guzzling lights with newer greener ones?

If the city hasn't done this already, they should convert to compact fluorescent light bulbs in all the city buildings. The savings will be year round. Every major hotel chain has converted along with many households, including mine.

Lynn,

The city has been converting the traffic lights to LED since just before I was elected to council and has continued to do so. Our difficulty is having the working capital to make the investment.

-Ryan

Thanks Ryan that is good to know. I know I didn't start this correctly but the question was really concerning the extra electricity that we use for Holiday lighting. Is it significantly more? Would switching to LED Holiday lights be advantageous or not?

In response to the amount of power used by each type of lighting for a 100 count string of lights:

LEDs use 4 Watts
The Mini Lights use approx 42.5 Watts
The old style bulbs use about 400 watts per string.

Using LEDs instead of the mini lights will save 90%.

I don't know what the city pays for power, but if it's around $.12 per kilowatt. the city has 100,000 bulbs and they are lit for 12 hours a day for 30 days that would be a savings of $1663.20. Check my math. You can adjust the number of bulbs up and down. This also assumes the city uses the mini lights, if they use the large old style lights the savings would approach $16,000.

I just bought some LEDs this year but you can't find all the colors in uni-colored strands. I personally like the sequential holiday color combo blue and green then blue and red then green and red and of course purple and yellow.....

When those compact flourescent bulbs burn out, please take them to the Lakewood Recycling Center on Berea Road so that they may be properly recycled.

A recent article in the Observer did not indicate that the service was available in Lakewood and it is.

I've been too busy to write an article about just how many things we can recycle through the Berea Road facility, but the Refuse and Recycling folks have done an amazing job and offer Lakewood residents superior service and options.

Let's not allow them to be lonely!

Great point dl. I just recently dropped off a couple of bulbs and some old oil based paint.

Very easy to do, just took a couple of minutes.

Do they recycle computer monitors? I have a dead Apple Studio Display that I need to get rid of...

They do collect computer stuff year round and they send it to RET3, which is located downtown. RET3 is the major recycler in the state and the folks who do the computer round-ups each year at the fairgrounds (and other locations).

RET3 secure erases hard drives and refurbishes computers, offering them for sale at a huge discount to not-for-profits, schools, etc. that provide training.