Durham, N.C. — Cree, Inc. and the Municipality of Anchorage announced Anchorage’s participation in the LED City 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 US 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 LEDs, typically last up to seven times longer than high-pressure sodium fixtures, allowing Anchorage to better utilize maintenance resources.

About LED City
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

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 22 percent of electricity used in the U.S. powers lighting. In a world with soaring energy prices based on the availability and control of fossil fuels, and with growing concern about sustainability of the environment, a revolution in lighting is long overdue.

LED City program participants include Raleigh, NC; Toronto, Ontario; Ann Arbor, MI; Austin, TX; Tianjin, China; Torraca, Italy, and now Anchorage, AK.

For more information about Anchorage visit: www.muni.org.  

For additional exterior LED luminaire information, visit www.BetaLED.com.

For additional product and company information, please refer to www.cree.com.