LED Retrofit

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Case Western Reserve University has begun to embrace the energy savings that LED lighting can provide, although on a far smaller scale than what the city of Cleveland proposes.

The university's facilities services director and an engineering professor testified about the benefits of the high-tech lights Wednesday before a City Council committee that is considering LED-related legislation proposed by Mayor Frank Jackson.
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Jackson wants council to approve a 10-year contract to buy millions of dollars in LED street and traffic lights, tube lights and light bulbs from one company in exchange for the company building a manufacturing and research facility in the city and creating at least 350 jobs.

Jackson asked council on May 31 to shelve an ordinance that would have given the contract to a Chinese company. He said he had "tainted" the process by announcing the deal with Sunpu-Opto Semiconductor Ltd. while Cleveland Public Power officials were still gathering proposals from competing lighting companies.

His administration submitted a similar ordinance a week later that calls for finding a LED supplier through competitive bidding.

At the Wednesday committee hearing, CWRU officials reported that the university has replaced various types of lighting with LEDs in about 250 fixtures, including lights for elevators, stairwells, parking lots and wall sconces.

The energy savings amounts to nearly $19,000 a year, said Eugene Matthews, the school's facilities services director.

Matthews said no one has complained about the LED lights, but acknowledged that LEDs have limits.

"There's no single technology that can be applied across the board," he said.

Matthews and Frank Merat, the engineering professor, agreed that replacing fluorescent tube lights with LEDs is not yet cost efficient. The head of solid-state lighting research for the U.S. Department of Energy has issued a similar opinion.

Administration officials said Wednesday that the proposed legislation does not obligate the city to buy fluorescent tube replacements if they do not make economic sense.

Officials have not specified how many LED lights the city will buy if City Council approves the ordinance, but the number would be considerable.

When pushing for the deal with Sunpu-Opto, administration officials planned to initially buy 10,000 street lights, 100,000 fluorescent tube replacements for city buildings and 150,000 light bulbs to distribute to residents.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: mgillispie@plaind.com, 216-999-4738