February 1, 2008 News Media Release

Austin Joins Nationwide LED Initiative

Austin joins Toronto, Canada, Raleigh, North Carolina and Ann Arbor, Michigan as a participant in a nationwide LED City initiative to promote and deploy LED lighting technology, the brightest and most energy efficient lighting available today.

LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes), which consist of solid state devices rather than glass tubes filled with gases or filaments, offer the most energy efficient and environmentally clean (no mercury) lighting technology. Austin Energy, the City of Austin’s electric utility, is testing the new LED technology in a number of applications. The utility is also the first in the nation to provide rebates to Austin Energy businesses that utilize LEDs.

“The Austin Energy rebate of $300 per kilowatt of capacity reduced through LED lighting will cover about 30% of the cost of LEDs to help businesses explore the benefits of this new technology,” said Austin Mayor Will Wynn. “LEDs represent another new exciting technology that can help us achieve the ambitious goals we have established through our Climate Protection Plan.”

LED lighting is dramatically brighter than other lighting technology. It produces about 70 lumens (the standard measure for light) per watt versus 35 lumens for compact fluorescent lights and 10-15 lumens from incandescent bulbs. In addition, LEDs use 25-30 percent less energy than CFLs, 50-60 percent less energy than incandescent lighting and unlike CFLs, contain no mercury. LEDs typically last 10-12 years which is a longer life than CFLs and 10 times longer than incandescent lighting. LEDs are more expensive than other forms of lighting, but provide a payback on investment within about 6 years.

Austin Energy is deploying LED lighting in a variety of applications. The largest project to date involved the installation of LEDs throughout the first floor of the One Texas Center Parking garage. LEDs also have been installed in a hallway application at Austin Energy headquarters, in a
streetlight application on Barton Springs, in the Palmer Events Center and
Convention Center marquee signs and in the water fountain at the new
Palmer Events Center Park. Additional test installations will occur throughout the City including a portion of the lights surrounding the Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail. Also, in 2003, the City of Austin replaced incandescent bulbs in all traffic signals with LED bulbs, reducing energy use by 7.25 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) and saving $1.4 million a year on traffic signals alone.

The goal of the LED City initiative is to increase the visibility of LED lighting in a variety of settings, to gather data on its performance and maintenance requirements while increasing demand overall to help bring economy of scale reductions in production cost of LED bulbs and fixtures.

The LED City initiative is supported by Cree, a manufacturer of semiconductors that increase the energy performance of LED solid state lighting. More information can be found at www.ledcity.org about the LED City initiative.

For more information, contact Ed Clark, Public Information.
Phone: (512) 322-6514
Pager: (512) 802-2000