GE engineer, inventor and physicist Gary Allen has spent the last 25 years blazing a trail to a better light. He says that we are on the cusp of a lighting revolution that will lead to nearly perfect illumination. “Lighting is becoming almost everything we ever wanted it to be, and even things we never imagined,” Allen says.
Allen recently talked about his quest at a TED event in Cleveland, Ohio. “If you had a nearly ideal light source what would you do with it?” he asked the audience. “It would have long life, be vanishingly small, [have] high-precision, high-efficiency, great color, controllable, smart, and connected."
That light source is the LED, invented 50 years ago by a former colleague Nick Holonyak. LEDs are bits of special semiconductors that convert as much as a third of the electricity that flows through them directly to light. After a flickering start, the use LED systems in commercial lighting applications has exploded over the last decade. Grocery cases, commercial ceilings, business signs, parking lots and roadways all use LEDs, and LED lights are now moving into the home. Commercial and consumer LED lighting could reach 60 percent of all sales by the end of the decade, according to some estimates. "In five years, the cost of LED light bulbs should not be a concern for most consumers," Allen says. "They’ll get a nearly perfect light bulb at an affordable price, and each one will save them $100 or more."
LEDs are so efficient because of the way they convert electricity into light. Thomas Edison’s breakthrough 1879 light bulb could only convert about one percent of electricity into light and wasted the rest as heat. If you've recently tried to touch a lit old-fashioned light bulb with bare hands, you know that things have not improved much over the last 130 years. Allen said that by 2030, advanced LEDs would be able to convert up to 80 percent of electricity that courses through them directly into light.
Allen started his career by working on nuclear fusion, but moved into lighting with the hope of making a more near-term difference to the world. “I wanted to see my work have a more direct impact in my lifetime,” he said. “Having worked in lighting, we’ve had an immediate and significant impact on global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. That’s been very satisfying to me.”
Showing posts with label Lighting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lighting. Show all posts
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Friday, December 28, 2012
Meet Mr. Christmas Tree: GE’s Jim Riccio Has Been Testing Designs for the National Christmas Tree for the Last 15 Years
Every fall for the past 15 years, before the President and the First Family turn on the National Christmas tree in President’s Park outside the White House, Jim Riccio has strung thousands of Christmas lights on a nearly identical spruce outside GE’s headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut. “The design is the same as the one in DC,” Riccio says. “It’s as close as you can get to an exact duplicate.”
For most of the year, Riccio works as senior facilities technician in Fairfield. “I do anything that needs doing, from changing light bulbs to fixing air conditioning and plumbing,” he says. But come Columbus Day, Riccio embarks on a mission of national significance: testing the lighting design for America’s premier holiday tree.
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/USN-Tree.jpg"]
The First Spruce: The 2012 National Christmas Tree in President's Park outside the White House. The tree design changes every year.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FfldTree.jpg"]
Every year for the last 15 years, GE's Jim Riccio has been building a replica of the National Christmas Tree at GE's headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FfldTree2.jpg"]
Every year for the last 15 years, GE's Jim Riccio has been building a replica of the National Christmas Tree at GE's headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut.
[/image]
[/slides]
GE Lighting has designed the lights display and provided bulbs and lamps for the national tree for the last 50 years. About 20 years ago GE lighting designers started testing their designs in Fairfield. “In Washington they have a very strict deadline and limitations because they are right in front of the White House,” Riccio says. “We build it here a week or two earlier so that they can see what it looks like. If things don’t look right, they still have time to fix it.”
The computer-controlled design changes every year. Riccio starts working from a “power point presentation the designers used in Washington to get the design approved,” he says. The red, white and green lights, cables, and golden star ornaments weighing in at 1,000 pounds arrive on three wooden packing skids in mid-October.
It takes and Riccio and a few assistants from the landscaping crew five or six weeks to adorn the 45-foot spruce, depending on weather. “Sometimes you can’t get out there when it’s too windy and stuff,” he says. They work methodically from a 65-foot high bucket truck and a step ladder for the lower branches. Riccio keeps the design team at GE Lighting in Cleveland, Ohio, informed about his progress. “We email and talk back and forth about how it is supposed to be designed, and what the decoration set up is,” he says.
Riccio aims to be done by Thanksgiving, two weeks before the President lights the National Christmas Tree on the first Thursday in December. Since 2007, GE has been using LEDs instead of standard incandescent Christmas lights. “The LEDs cut our power consumption by 80 percent,” he says.
The Fairfield tree stands outside the main gatehouse on Easton Turnpike where everybody in the neighborhood or just passing by can see it. Riccio starts taking down the lights after the New Year, a job that takes about two weeks. He ships them back to Cleveland.
Does he use any of his decorating tricks on his own tree? “No,” Riccio says. “I let my wife and son decorate the tree at home.”
For most of the year, Riccio works as senior facilities technician in Fairfield. “I do anything that needs doing, from changing light bulbs to fixing air conditioning and plumbing,” he says. But come Columbus Day, Riccio embarks on a mission of national significance: testing the lighting design for America’s premier holiday tree.
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/USN-Tree.jpg"]
The First Spruce: The 2012 National Christmas Tree in President's Park outside the White House. The tree design changes every year.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FfldTree.jpg"]
Every year for the last 15 years, GE's Jim Riccio has been building a replica of the National Christmas Tree at GE's headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FfldTree2.jpg"]
Every year for the last 15 years, GE's Jim Riccio has been building a replica of the National Christmas Tree at GE's headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut.
[/image]
[/slides]
GE Lighting has designed the lights display and provided bulbs and lamps for the national tree for the last 50 years. About 20 years ago GE lighting designers started testing their designs in Fairfield. “In Washington they have a very strict deadline and limitations because they are right in front of the White House,” Riccio says. “We build it here a week or two earlier so that they can see what it looks like. If things don’t look right, they still have time to fix it.”
The computer-controlled design changes every year. Riccio starts working from a “power point presentation the designers used in Washington to get the design approved,” he says. The red, white and green lights, cables, and golden star ornaments weighing in at 1,000 pounds arrive on three wooden packing skids in mid-October.
It takes and Riccio and a few assistants from the landscaping crew five or six weeks to adorn the 45-foot spruce, depending on weather. “Sometimes you can’t get out there when it’s too windy and stuff,” he says. They work methodically from a 65-foot high bucket truck and a step ladder for the lower branches. Riccio keeps the design team at GE Lighting in Cleveland, Ohio, informed about his progress. “We email and talk back and forth about how it is supposed to be designed, and what the decoration set up is,” he says.
Riccio aims to be done by Thanksgiving, two weeks before the President lights the National Christmas Tree on the first Thursday in December. Since 2007, GE has been using LEDs instead of standard incandescent Christmas lights. “The LEDs cut our power consumption by 80 percent,” he says.
The Fairfield tree stands outside the main gatehouse on Easton Turnpike where everybody in the neighborhood or just passing by can see it. Riccio starts taking down the lights after the New Year, a job that takes about two weeks. He ships them back to Cleveland.
Does he use any of his decorating tricks on his own tree? “No,” Riccio says. “I let my wife and son decorate the tree at home.”
Friday, October 12, 2012
One, Two, Three Strikes, It’s Lights Out: How GE Engineer Reinvented Baseball
Late night baseball is as common as peanuts and Cracker Jack, but it has not always been the case. For many decades baseball was a daytime pursuit. Weekday games often clashed with the company clock and stands were empty. Everything changed in the 1930s when GE lighting designer Robert J. Swackhamer hit on an idea for stadium lights. His lights forever changed the economics of the game. They also saved at least one baseball team from ruin.
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball2.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The first night baseball game ever played. Salem beat Lynn 7-2 at the General Electric Athletic Field at Lynn, Massachusetts in June 1927.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball3.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The packed stands included players from the Boston Red Sox and Washington Americans who came to see Swackhamer's innovation.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball5.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
Night baseball scored a homerun at Lynn.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball1.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
Swackhamer's drawings for lighting the GE stadium in Lynn.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball4.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The Cincinnati Reds owner Powel Crosley took a gamble and asked GE to raise the lights over the Reds’ Crosley Field.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball7.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The first night game in Major League’s history took place on Friday, May 24, 1935. A crowd of 20,000 people watched the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball6.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The team played just seven night games in 1935. They brought in a total of 130,000 fans, or 18,500 visitors on average per game. Not bad for a $50,000 investment.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball8.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
Crosley Field, illuminated.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball9.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The Anaheim Angels are using GE lights.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball12.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
So do the Pittsburgh Pirates.[/image]
[/slides]
Swackhamer was thinking about freight trains, not homeruns, when he started working on his lights. In the 1920s, GE’s railroad customers asked Swackhamer to design special arrays of high-wattage lamps to keep rail yards open overnight. The system performed so well that Swackhamer convinced his bosses to try the lights at the General Electric Athletic Field at Lynn, Massachusetts. On June 24, 1927, towers supporting 72 flood lamps illuminated the first night baseball game between Lynn and Salem.
Salem won 7-2 and the packed stands, which included players from the Boston Red Sox and the Washington Americans who played in Boston that afternoon, got the GE sales team thinking. Within three years GE signed up several Minor League teams and by 1935 it had the first big customer. The Cincinnati Reds were on the brink of bankruptcy at the time. No more than 3,000 fans would show up for the average weekday game. Maybe more people will come after work, the Reds owner Powel Crosley and general manager Leland “Larry” MacPhail reasoned. Crosley took a gamble and asked GE to raise the lights over the Reds’ Crosley Field.
The first night game in Major League’s history took place on Friday, May 24, 1935. A crowd of 20,000 people watched the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1. It was narrow win, but it caused a revolution in baseball. “As soon as I saw the lights come on I knew they were there to stay,” said Cincinnati’s Red Barber who was announcing on the first night. The fans liked the night game idea. The Reds drew 207,000 people in 77 home games in the 1934 season. The team played just seven night games in 1935. They brought in a total of 130,000 fans, or 18,500 visitors on average per game. Not bad for a $50,000 investment.
Some large teams viewed the idea of night games with trepidation. “They wanted to turn me over to the sheriff in 1930 when I put in the first [Minor League] baseball lighting system in Des Moines and said it wouldn’t be long before the major leagues would do it,” Swackhamer told the writer David Pietrusza. He had a point. “Undoubtedly an attempt will be made to introduce night baseball in the major leagues, and it can not be considered lightly,” New York Giants manager John McGraw worried. But many teams soon followed the Reds’ lead. By 1941, 11 of the 16 Major League baseball fields had installed GE lights, including the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and even the Giants.
GE has turned on the lights at 21 baseball arenas around the country, including the St. Louis Cardinals’ Busch Stadium, the Baltimore Orioles’ Camden Yards, and the San Francisco Giant’s AT&T Park. Lighting a baseball stadium is no trifle. The entire process, from planning to installation, can take roughly two years. Debbie Johnson, a lighting designer with GE Lighting, says the most challenging aspect of the process is “coordinating the fixture locations to achieve the optimum lighting levels.” Johnson says that there are “many obstacles like speakers, scoreboards and banners” that can get in the way. Her colleague, lead lighting designer Rick Owen, says that the “aiming process” is the most arduous part of the job and can take days on non-stop work. “We crisscross the field so many times that we end up walking several miles throughout each day," Owen says. Even details such as the way the grass is mowed effect reflectivity and the end result.
But for Johnson, it’s all good. “I love being able to make the game more enjoyable for fans across the nation,” she says. “In the end, it’s all for them.”
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball2.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The first night baseball game ever played. Salem beat Lynn 7-2 at the General Electric Athletic Field at Lynn, Massachusetts in June 1927.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball3.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The packed stands included players from the Boston Red Sox and Washington Americans who came to see Swackhamer's innovation.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball5.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
Night baseball scored a homerun at Lynn.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball1.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
Swackhamer's drawings for lighting the GE stadium in Lynn.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball4.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The Cincinnati Reds owner Powel Crosley took a gamble and asked GE to raise the lights over the Reds’ Crosley Field.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball7.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The first night game in Major League’s history took place on Friday, May 24, 1935. A crowd of 20,000 people watched the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball6.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The team played just seven night games in 1935. They brought in a total of 130,000 fans, or 18,500 visitors on average per game. Not bad for a $50,000 investment.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball8.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
Crosley Field, illuminated.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball9.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
The Anaheim Angels are using GE lights.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lighting_Baseball12.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]
So do the Pittsburgh Pirates.[/image]
[/slides]
Swackhamer was thinking about freight trains, not homeruns, when he started working on his lights. In the 1920s, GE’s railroad customers asked Swackhamer to design special arrays of high-wattage lamps to keep rail yards open overnight. The system performed so well that Swackhamer convinced his bosses to try the lights at the General Electric Athletic Field at Lynn, Massachusetts. On June 24, 1927, towers supporting 72 flood lamps illuminated the first night baseball game between Lynn and Salem.
Salem won 7-2 and the packed stands, which included players from the Boston Red Sox and the Washington Americans who played in Boston that afternoon, got the GE sales team thinking. Within three years GE signed up several Minor League teams and by 1935 it had the first big customer. The Cincinnati Reds were on the brink of bankruptcy at the time. No more than 3,000 fans would show up for the average weekday game. Maybe more people will come after work, the Reds owner Powel Crosley and general manager Leland “Larry” MacPhail reasoned. Crosley took a gamble and asked GE to raise the lights over the Reds’ Crosley Field.
The first night game in Major League’s history took place on Friday, May 24, 1935. A crowd of 20,000 people watched the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1. It was narrow win, but it caused a revolution in baseball. “As soon as I saw the lights come on I knew they were there to stay,” said Cincinnati’s Red Barber who was announcing on the first night. The fans liked the night game idea. The Reds drew 207,000 people in 77 home games in the 1934 season. The team played just seven night games in 1935. They brought in a total of 130,000 fans, or 18,500 visitors on average per game. Not bad for a $50,000 investment.
Some large teams viewed the idea of night games with trepidation. “They wanted to turn me over to the sheriff in 1930 when I put in the first [Minor League] baseball lighting system in Des Moines and said it wouldn’t be long before the major leagues would do it,” Swackhamer told the writer David Pietrusza. He had a point. “Undoubtedly an attempt will be made to introduce night baseball in the major leagues, and it can not be considered lightly,” New York Giants manager John McGraw worried. But many teams soon followed the Reds’ lead. By 1941, 11 of the 16 Major League baseball fields had installed GE lights, including the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and even the Giants.
GE has turned on the lights at 21 baseball arenas around the country, including the St. Louis Cardinals’ Busch Stadium, the Baltimore Orioles’ Camden Yards, and the San Francisco Giant’s AT&T Park. Lighting a baseball stadium is no trifle. The entire process, from planning to installation, can take roughly two years. Debbie Johnson, a lighting designer with GE Lighting, says the most challenging aspect of the process is “coordinating the fixture locations to achieve the optimum lighting levels.” Johnson says that there are “many obstacles like speakers, scoreboards and banners” that can get in the way. Her colleague, lead lighting designer Rick Owen, says that the “aiming process” is the most arduous part of the job and can take days on non-stop work. “We crisscross the field so many times that we end up walking several miles throughout each day," Owen says. Even details such as the way the grass is mowed effect reflectivity and the end result.
But for Johnson, it’s all good. “I love being able to make the game more enjoyable for fans across the nation,” she says. “In the end, it’s all for them.”
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
All That Glitters is LED: London’s Tower Bridge Dons New “Diamond” Coat for Queen’s Jubilee
Teams of lighting designers and electricians spent the last six months crawling across the granite ledges and steel suspension chains of London’s landmark Tower Bridge, stringing some 6,500 feet of energy-efficient LED linear lights, 18,000 LEDs, and 1,000 junction boxes with 16,500 feet of cable. There is one thing left to do.
This evening, London Mayor Boris Johnson will turn on the lights to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The bridge will gleam in “diamond” white throughout the weekend for the royal celebration, but the light show’s just beginning. Next up: During the 45 days of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games held in the British capital this summer, the bridge will sport giant Olympic rings and Paralympic agitos symbols.
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge1.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge2.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge3.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge4.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge5.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge6.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge7.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge8.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge9.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge10.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[/slides]
The new lighting system, which is using GE architectural LED systems, will remain in place for the next 25 years. It replaces a quarter of a century old legacy system and will cut the landmark’s energy consumptions by 40 percent. The French firm Citelum, whose lighting designs illuminated the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, and the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, built the lighting set up.
The GE LED technology lets Citelum blend many shades of colors of variable intensity. The lights can be “heat formed” to fit a variety of architectural needs and enhance the Victorian gothic turrets, stone towers, and walkways that make this the 117-year old bridge one of the world’s most recognizable sights.
GE, a sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics, partnered with EDF Energy on the project. GE's support for the games runs from uninterruptable power generators for the main Olympic stadium to advanced medical diagnostic equipment. GE will also provide a large number charging stations for a fleet of Olympic electric vehicles.
This evening, London Mayor Boris Johnson will turn on the lights to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The bridge will gleam in “diamond” white throughout the weekend for the royal celebration, but the light show’s just beginning. Next up: During the 45 days of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games held in the British capital this summer, the bridge will sport giant Olympic rings and Paralympic agitos symbols.
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge1.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge2.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge3.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge4.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge5.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge6.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge7.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge8.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge9.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge10.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[/slides]
The new lighting system, which is using GE architectural LED systems, will remain in place for the next 25 years. It replaces a quarter of a century old legacy system and will cut the landmark’s energy consumptions by 40 percent. The French firm Citelum, whose lighting designs illuminated the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, and the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, built the lighting set up.
The GE LED technology lets Citelum blend many shades of colors of variable intensity. The lights can be “heat formed” to fit a variety of architectural needs and enhance the Victorian gothic turrets, stone towers, and walkways that make this the 117-year old bridge one of the world’s most recognizable sights.
GE, a sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics, partnered with EDF Energy on the project. GE's support for the games runs from uninterruptable power generators for the main Olympic stadium to advanced medical diagnostic equipment. GE will also provide a large number charging stations for a fleet of Olympic electric vehicles.
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