The company President Alan Ruud says Ruud Lighting's LED street light fixtures use 50% less energy than a conventional street light, the lights will be installed on some Racine streets. Other cities in the United States and around the world also have purchased the long-lasting, energy-saving fixtures. Because of demands to reduce costs through energy efficiency and to avoid the use of hazardous materials, Ruud Lighting’s Beta Lighting division is seeing increased interest in LED technology, such as mercury, in energy-efficient light fixtures.
The privately held company and its lighting partner, Cree Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., won a contract under which the City of Anchorage will replace all of its 16,000 light fixtures over the next four years. The first 4,000 fixtures were approved last week under a $2.2 million appropriation announced by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.
According to a Navigant Consulting study in 2002, the market for LED street lighting is vast, as 1% of all the electricity sold by investor-owned utilities in the country is used on street lights. Ruud Lighting has patents to develop fixtures that incorporate technology from Cree, an LED lighting manufacturer. Ruud’s energy-saving lights are being installed in highway tunnels in Italy, along streets in Oakland, Calif., on the exterior of the Metro Market store in downtown Milwaukee and at the new Johnson Controls Inc. headquarters in Glendale.
The product developed in recent months, known as LEDway, was developed in response to a federal Department of Energy study conducted of the lights that Ruud installed last year in Oakland.
That business, Dew & Ken Group Inc. of Madison, already has its lights installed on several streets in China and is working to get customers in the United States. Dew & Ken was a finalist in the Governor’s Business Plan Contest.
