OLP of Colorado will be showcasing the latest energy efficient lighting products for illuminating community entrances, parks, clubhouses and common areas. LED, ceramic metal halide, and quartz halogen fixtures will be on display, and multimedia photos will show what actual installations look like after dark.

The event provides an opportunity for hundreds of community/HOA managers, property managers, and contractors to interact and attend the trade show and educational sessions.

Between the hours of 4:00 pm and 6:00 pm, friends, family and business associates of OLP of Colorado are welcome to come visit us (Booth #74) and stroll throughout the air and space museum to view the historical aircraft and aerospace exhibits. As a former aerospace engineer, I know I can’t wait!

We look forward to seeing you there!

At Outdoor Lighting Perspectives (OLP) of Colorado, we certainly emphasize the use of energy efficient lighting products such as low voltage quartz halogen, low voltage LED, line voltage Ceramic Metal Halide, line voltage induction fluorescent, and Lighting Control Automation™ for our residential and/or commercial customers. For interior lighting, Compact Fluorescents (CFLs) and LEDs are helping to greatly reduce homeowners’ energy usage as well.

Sometimes, even the little things add up. In OLP’s business operations we recycle copper wiring and the copper cores of low voltage transformers, stainless steel transformers, office papercardboard, and aluminum cans. For service calls and installations, we route and schedule our crews/vans to minimize travel time and mileage.  To improve fuel economy, we off-load unnecessary inventory/tools and ladders on roof racks before heading off to that day’s job tickets.

To take part in Earth Day festivities being held this week in Colorado, please take a look and participate in the events shown below:

EARTH DAY 40TH ANNIVERSARY - NREL Visitors Center, Golden; April 19 – 23; free events during the week; www.nrel.gov

EARTH DAY ON EAST MOUNTAIN - 240 – 262 E. Mountain Avenue, Old Town Fort Collins; April 22. Block Party – celebrate Earth Day with live music/food, demos and presentations about growth and sustainability. www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=105316966166440&ref=ts

DENVER BOTANIC GARDENS - 1007 York St., Denver; April 22; FREE DAY for Colorado residents; www.botanicgardens.org

EARTH DAY AT RED ROCKS - Saturday, April 24; Red Rocks Amphitheater; Morrison. Eco-friendly events – musical performance by Aspen Meadow, wolves from W.O.L.F. Sanctuary, clean up event at the park and environmental displays. www.windstarcoloradoconnection.org

PIKES PEAK EARTH DAY - Saturday April 24; Cornerstone Arts Center – Colorado College, Colorado Springs. Theme – 40 Years of Earth Day – ReVision, RePurpose, ReNew. www.Pikespeakearthday.org

EARTH FEST 2010 - Sunday, April 25; downtown Boulder – Central Park, Bandshell and Farmers Market. Eco activities/events – renewable energy demos, 5th Annual Dirt Day Advanced Challenge/EXPO, live music and organice food. www.earthfestboulder.net

So whether you celebrate at one of these events or by doing something for Mother Earth at home, have a good time and remember that Earth Day should be every day of the year!

Started in Australia in 2007, EARTH HOUR’S support has grown worldwide and some of the most famous buildings will go dark for one hour during their local 8:30 to 9:30 pm time period including Toronto’s CN Tower, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, Rome’s Colisseum, and Paris’ Eiffel Tower.

In Colorado, both the Governor’s Mansion and the State Capitol building will go dark for one hour. Governor Bill Ritter said that Colorado has become a great example of how a state can implement aggressive energy reduction goals while growing a New Energy Economy. I am proud that Colorado can be a part of this worldwide effort to bring attention to the dire consequences of global climate change.

Please join Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Colorado in supporting this worldwide effort. We of course are trying to do our part by reducing the energy/carbon footprints of both our residential and commercial lighting installations. By introducing and installing energy efficient LED lighting systems for residential applications as well as Lighting Control Automation™ - we are greatly reducing our customer’s usage of electricity. On the commercial side, we are installing energy efficient Ceramic Metal Halide fixtures.

Close Up of LED Fixture at Diamond Ridge Installation

About a month ago there was a story reported around the country that many northern cities had been experiencing problems with their new LED traffic lights. Apparently in some of these cities, the LED traffic lights would not generate enough heat in order to melt the accumulating build up of snow and ice during the winter months. It was also reported in the local news that fortunately this has not been a problem in the Denver metro area with all of the hours of sunshine we typically receive.

Before we actually began using LED fixtures for architectural and landscape lighting, we also wondered how well our new and innovative fixtures would melt the snow. As you can see in the above photo, they do quite well – thank you.

The actual reason that these fixtures melt the snow is inherent in their initial design as well as manufacturing. The main factor that limits the life of the LEDs/electronics is the heat build up inside the fixture. Our manufacturer has placed the LED driver in the mounting stake for the fixture – not inside the fixture itself as have most manufacturers.

In addition, any remaining heat generated by the LED bulb itself is dissipated by means of cooling fins as shown in the Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) thermal model below that was used to design a deck light. As a forner aerospace engineer, my expertise had been in thermal and fluid flow modeling for jet engines, rockets, spacecraft, and solar energy projects – so I tip my hat to the innovative engineers at our manufacturing company!

CAE Thermal Design Model for LED Deck Light

The fixtures are machined out of solid brass (aluminum is also an option) to provide the thermal heat exchange capabilities. Not only are the fins an engineering design feature, they add to the aesthetic appearance of the fixtures as well. By pulling the heat away from the LED bulb itself, the fins and fixture reach an outside surface temperature of 96-degrees F – enough to melt snow.

The design and testing of these fixtures have been on-going during the last seven years. Brass fixtures have a lifetime warranty, and the LEDs and electronics have had a five year warranty. However, we have heard that this warranty may be getting a lot better in the near future – so stay tuned!

Outdoor Lighting Makes a Statement for a Community

Mead L. Noss, P.E.

Owner, Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Colorado

Communities take great pride in the aesthetics of their public spaces and landscaped areas during the daytime, and in the evening a community’s outdoor lighting should also set the appropriate tone. Does the community seem warm and inviting (safe and secure)? Or does the lighting detract from the overall experience of the neighborhood? Are the residents enjoying the public spaces after dark with well-illuminated path and bikeways?

More often than not, outdoor lighting in communities can be improved greatly with modern bulb technology, fixtures, and more effective lighting design. How many times have you driven by a community entrance with beautifully landscaped flower beds in the daytime only to be aghast at the same location in the evening as the once-beautiful landscaping is now bathed in the harsh yellow light from high-pressure sodium floods? In the current economic times with increasing energy costs and reduced operating budgets, communities now have the option of enhancing their outdoor lighting without sacrificing safety, security, aesthetics, usability, or energy efficiency.

Safety and Security

With any outdoor lighting system, safety and security are paramount. A good community lighting plan begins at all of the entrances to the community. You certainly want homeowners and their guests to find the community easily after dark but more importantly you want emergency fire, police and medical crews to find their way there even more quickly.

Well-placed and directed lighting will enhance the view of security cameras at an entrance gate or community center. Additionally, the security and accessibility of community mailboxes will be enhanced with overhead lighting.

Clubhouses, parks and other public areas must be properly illuminated to prevent falls and injuries after dark, as well as to deter vandalism and other crimes. Street lighting especially at intersections throughout the community enables motorists to find street signs after dark and to allow pedestrians to safely enjoy their evening walks.

The security of individual homeowners’ houses is also improved by architectural and landscape lighting that illuminates both the home and the perimeter of the property. Any police department in the state or country will tell you that burglars will almost always target the homes without lighting rather than taking risks with homes that are well-illuminated.

One of the myths about security and outdoor lighting is that if a little lighting is good, adding much more lighting is better – right? Well, that’s not actually the case. If the lighting fixtures produce lots of glare, adding additional fixtures of the same type or increasing the wattage of the bulbs will actually produce more glare thereby reducing visibility and security. A truism of good lighting design is that the quality of light is always better than the quantity of light.

Aesthetics and Usability

The aesthetics and usability of the overall lighting found in a community is of the utmost importance. The impression of the community after dark should be warm and inviting without harsh lights or glare. How often have you driven into a community only to be blinded by unshielded carriage lights at the entrance or by unshielded carriage lights along the street on driveway columns?

There are two types of glare – nuisance glare and disabling glare – and carriage lights along the street really do approach the level of disabling glare, especially for older drivers. As we age, our eyes become more susceptible to the effects of glare and it takes us longer to recover our full vision.  

Misdirected flood lights from one neighbor’s house into the adjacent neighbor’s yard (called light trespass) is unpleasant and can be categorized as nuisance glare – and it certainly affects the usability and enjoyment of the affected neighbor’s yard or his/her night’s sleep if the lighting is visible from their bedroom.

Any time that a bulb source is visible to anyone living in or driving through a community, it means that the lighting and resulting energy costs are wasted because the lighting is not directed to only where it’s needed.

Energy Efficiency and Cost

One of the first rules of lighting design is to not specify more light than you need; i.e., do not use line voltage metal halide lighting fixtures where low-voltage quartz halogen or LED (light-emitting diode) fixtures might do. It all depends on the ambient lighting conditions, what needs to be illuminated, and how the space is to be used in the evening. Evening lighting demonstrations with different lighting and cost options can provide communities with meaningful and visual comparisons from which to base their future capital improvement decisions.

Recent technology has improved to the extent that lighting designers and contractors can now provide energy efficient lighting that is effective from both a lumen output and Color Rendering Index (CRI) standpoint. What exactly is CRI? CRI is the comparison of how well a particular light source emits a color approximating a noon time sun (See the following table).

COLOR RENDERING INDEX TABLE

Ceramic Metal Halide bulbs (39W or 70W) with a 15,000-hour life powered by low-voltage or line-voltage systems provide the true color (90-96 CRI) that is desired for lighting entrances, parks, and clubhouses in the evening.

Quality low-voltage LED (light emitting diode) fixtures with 50,000-hour rated life bulbs have recently become available and with an acceptable and improving CRI. The tradeoff investment-wise is a higher initial cost with lower residual operating costs.

When comparing bulb sources and efficiency, another helpful term is the lumen. A lumen is the measurement of reflectant light off of a surface. This is how all light sources are rated as you can see in the following table:

LUMEN COMPARISON BY LIGHT SOURCE

As you can see from the table, incandescent bulbs are very inefficient and high pressure sodium bulbs are very efficient, as long as you like everything looking yellow in the evening. With respect to energy efficiency and light quality, line voltage or low voltage ceramic metal halide and low voltage quartz halogen lighting systems are the best solution, with low-voltage LED lighting systems becoming more and more acceptable for certain applications. In fact, LED lighting installations powered by off-the-grid solar photovoltaic systems are the optimum solution for community areas requiring lighting but having no readily available source of power.

Maintenance

Warranties and maintenance costs become very important over the long term with respect to lighting systems – and communities and their respective homeowners should try to obtain the best warranties available. In addition, the best maintenance for any lighting system is usually provided by the original company that installed it since they are most familiar with the product and installation. However, not all companies that install lighting systems also provide maintenance so that is an important consideration when evaluating a contractor.

As with any other asset in the community, lighting systems need to be maintained on a regular basis to provide optimum performance and to serve the needs of the community. In closing, the appearance of any outdoor lighting system (daytime or evening) really does set an appropriate tone for the community.

Sources:

1. Go Green, Save Green presentation, Outdoor Lighting Perspectives Commercial Lighting Division, 2008.
2. Illuminating Engineering Society