CLEVELAND (November 30, 2010) --- The City of East Cleveland is decreasing energy costs by replacing 45 standard-technology municipal street lights with GE's award-winning Evolve™ LED roadway street lights. The project grows out of a long partnership between GE Lighting and East Cleveland, which has been the home of the unit's headquarters for close to 100 years. A one-mile block along Noble Road serves as a demonstration to other municipalities of the benefits of a higher-efficiency lighting system.
The U.S. Department of Energy's national laboratories predicts that LED lights reduce energy needs by more than 50 percent and maintenance costs by more than 80 percent compared to traditional lights. It's estimated that the new GE Evolve LED street lights will reduce the city's energy use by 28 million watts a year.
"For nearly a century, GE Lighting has had a powerful, positive impact on our community and on northeast Ohio, in general," said Mayor Gary Norton, Jr. "We're elated to be among the first cities in the Cleveland region to work with GE to have its new LED street lighting system in place. This installation allows East Cleveland to set the standard for other communities seeking economical, energy-efficient municipal lighting."
Mayor Norton said that the GE LED street lights give city residents the enhanced security associated with this high-performance lighting system. The system shines a bright, more uniform light across the entire area it illuminates, versus spotty, hot spots of light typical of certain other lighting technologies used in roadway lighting. Even with less lumens, or light level, compared to a high-intensity discharge street lighting system, the LED system better directs the light to where it is needed due to its advanced optics. The GE LED street lighting system is more precisely focused, which reduces light pollution and limits glare.
"Our new GE Evolve LED street lights are the perfect fit for the needs of urban municipalities," said Michael B. Petras, Jr., President & CEO of GE Lighting. "With this project, East Cleveland is deploying aesthetically pleasing, high-technology street lights that offer excellent illumination similar to evenly dispersed, bright moonlight. The quality of the light also boosts safety in a high-traffic area of the city, while significantly reducing the city's energy usage."
Earlier this year, GE Lighting and its LED unit, GE Lighting Solutions, earned more awards than any other company in the 2010 Next Generation Luminaires™ (NGL) Competition, including a Best-in-Class award for the GE Evolve™ LED street lighting system. GE LED lighting products for refrigerated display, architectural and outdoor applications were also recognized in the competition. The event is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America and the International Association of Lighting Designers for "excellence in the design of energy-efficient LED luminaries for general illumination lighting." A global industry leader, GE Lighting has provided more than 20 million feet of LED signage and architectural lighting around the world and installed over six million LED traffic and rail signals globally. GE has the world's largest installed base of LED refrigerated display lighting in the world---a category the company invented.
About GE -- Appliances & Lighting
GE -- Appliances & Lighting spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliances, lighting, systems and services for commercial, industrial and residential use. Technology innovation and the company's ecomaginationSM initiative enable GE -- Appliances & Lighting to aggressively bring to market products and solutions that help customers meet pressing environmental challenges. General Electric (NYSE: GE), imagination at work, sells products under the Monogram®, Profile™, GE®, Hotpoint®, Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Tetra®, Vio™ and Immersion® commercial brands. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.
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For further information, contact:
Janice Fraser via [email protected] or 216-266-2185
David Schuellerman via [email protected] or 216.266.9702
David Schuellerman
GE Consumer & Industrial
[email protected]
1-216-266-9702
1-216-513-6236