Recently, in Amherst a local manufacturing firm announced that the company is continuing to do what is possible to make our planet a greener place to live.
Chuck Cartmill from C-Vision, who is in the process of developing an LED technology to put into streetlighting said the majority of lighting pollution and wasted energy is from the overheads you see out on the streets, their fixture design is set up to use substantially less energy, but also comply with what is called Dark Skies, so all the light is directed down.
While LED Roadway Lighting Ltd. is based out of Halifax, Cartmill indicated the plant in the Amherst industrial park will be the LED contract manufacturing facility. The firm was given a $2.1-million grant in early 2007 through the Atlantic Innovation Fund to research cost and energy-efficient LED roadway lighting.
There are 500 million conventional high-pressure sodium streetlights in the world, Compared to a 100W high-pressure sodium streetlight, the new LED products Cartmill and his team will be developing can see at least a 46 per cent energy-use reduction. Over a 20-year lifetime, LED streetlights could save 560,000 MWhr, which equals approximately 27,983 MWhr per year. The LED could also reduce greenhouse gas by 440,000 tons over 20 years, equivalent to about 4,434 cars taken off the road per year.
Cartmill indicated that they are worked with Nichia in Japan six or seven weeks ago and developed with them an LED that's specific to our technology that the light your eyes are accustomed to seeing - those wavelengths at night. Once the technology is adopted, people will begin to see the benefits of LED streetlights and how much better the technology is.
