Recently, Cree, Inc., a market leader in LED lighting, and the City of Welland, Ontario, Canada, announced that Welland has joined the LED City initiative, an international program that promotes the deployment of energy-efficient LED lighting. The city has converted many of its lighting applications to LEDs, including streetlights and traffic signals, and has additional projects underway. Welland has also amended its municipal standards to facilitate LED lighting for all future streetlight installations.
Welland has installed 50 LED streetlights along the revitalized area of Fitch Street and is formalizing plans for the installation of 50 additional street and pedestrian lights. The city's growing use of LEDs is targeted to help decrease the CAN$550,000 per year cost of operating its streetlights. The city plans to eventually retrofit all streetlights with LEDs, which could yield a savings of $253,980 per year.
Mayor Damian Goulbourne said "Welland is committed to high-quality LED lighting that reduces energy and maintenance costs, it has been immersed in the testing of LED street lighting and aspires to become a green community, improving life for our residents. We look forward to promoting the benefits of our installations and sharing our experiences within the LED City program, helping to build a global municipal community committed to energy-efficient lighting."
According to Deb Lovig, Cree's LED City program manager, cree welcome Welland into the LED City community. Welland city officials have carefully evaluated LED lighting options and are responsibly deploying LED lighting to provide better light while reducing energy and maintenance costs, Welland is joining the LED lighting revolution and taking a leadership role in helping other cities learn the benefits of LED lighting in their own communities.
The LED City is an expanding community of government and industry parties working to evaluate deploy and promote LED lighting technology across the full range of municipal infrastructure to: Save energy; Protect the environment; Reduce maintenance costs; Provide better light quality for improved visibility and safety.
About Cree
Cree is leading the LED lighting revolution and setting the stage to obsolete the incandescent light bulb through the use of energy-efficient, environmentally friendly LED lighting. Cree is a market-leading innovator of lighting-class LEDs, LED lighting retrofit solutions, and semiconductor solutions for backlighting, wireless and power applications. Cree's product families include LED recessed down lights, lighting-class power LEDs, high brightness LEDs, blue and green LED chips, power-switching devices and radio-frequency/wireless devices. Cree solutions are driving improvements in applications such as general illumination, backlighting, electronic signs and signals, variable-speed motors, and wireless communications.
