Cree,  a market leader in LED lighting, and the Municipality of Anchorage today announced Anchorage's participation in the LED City(r) program, an international program that promotes the deployment of energy-efficient LED lighting. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich announced his city's participation in conjunction with an energy-related initiative calling for the retrofit of all 16,000 municipal roadway lights with high-efficiency LED fixtures.

"I am pleased to announce the appropriation of $2.2 million to enable the city to purchase LED fixtures to change out roughly one-quarter of Anchorage's streetlights," notes Mayor Begich. "We have studied new lighting technology extensively over the past several months to validate energy and maintenance cost savings. We also conducted a lighting conference and public survey in March of this year that showed our residents overwhelmingly approve of the new white LED lighting. With this feedback and quantified costs savings research in hand, we are confident in moving ahead with the broad deployment of LED lighting for our roadways."

"Lighting is absolutely critical to daily life in Anchorage. The continental U.S. has more than eight hours of daylight per day. Here in Anchorage, approximately 85 days a year see less than eight hours of daylight. It is significant that this community is at the forefront of adopting energy-efficient lighting," notes Deb Lovig, Cree LED City program manager. "Cree and the other LED Cities welcome Anchorage into the program and look forward to learning from this large-scale installation as the city pushes forward for energy and maintenance savings with LED lighting."

The LED fixtures from BetaLED are expected to use 50-percent less energy than current streetlights, which could save the city $360,000 annually at today's energy prices. The LED fixtures, based on performance-leading Cree XLamp(r) LEDs, typically last up to seven times longer than high-pressure sodium fixtures, allowing Anchorage to better utilize maintenance resources.

http://www.cree.com

http://www.betaled.com

http://www.ledcity.com/