New LED Technology Offers Bright Future

Jordan, MN -- (January 7, 2009) - Over the past several years, many Christmas light displays have gone from static to animated, using LED-based technology. As the trend continues to shift towards LED lighting, a Minnesota-based company has launched new LED retrofit bulbs that will give commercial and recreational users ultimate flexibility in their lighting displays.

Also known as replacement bulbs, the new LED retrofit "retro" bulbs are designed to be used with traditional LED Stringers also be used for many secondary lighting applications.

"These are the light bulbs of the future," says Travis Fremming, founder and president of Seasonal Impressions and LEDHolidayLighting.com.

He adds, "We've completed an extensive field test this past fall at commercial and residential locations across the United States and realize this retrofit technology has multiple applications. In fact, the lights can be used above and beyond holiday displays in venues such as casinos, stadiums, theme parks and everything in between."

The new retrofit bulbs take LED technology a step further and have the ability to dim anywhere from 0% to 100%, allowing users to create animated displays using lighting control products such as Light-O-Rama.

"We are very excited about this new retro LED technology," notes Dan Baldwin, president of New York-based Light-O-Rama.

"This is the first screw-in LED replacement we have encountered that will support all computerized lighting effects. We are extremely pleased to see a product that allows our customers to fully and transparently incorporate retrofit LEDs into their projects," he adds.

Widely known for being environmentally friendly, LED lights are favored by many commercial businesses and lighting enthusiasts because of their ability to cut electric bills by up to 90% compared to incandescent or fluorescent lights. Additionally, LEDs don't contain harmful toxins that can be found in other types of bulbs.

Seasonal Impressions is expecting brisk demand for its new retrofit bulbs in the coming year and expects the technology to further evolve.

"We've only scratched the surface on this technology," says Fremming. "We expect great thing to come from these retrofit bulbs and we also foresee a shift towards other types of LED technology such as solar powered displays. The possibilities are really limitless."

The bulbs are available in a variety of popular sizes and colors, including traditional C7 and C9. For more information, visit http://www.ledretros.com, the product will be available for pre-sale at http://www.ledholidaylighting.com or please call 952-292-4870.

# # #

Source: Seasonal Impressions
Contact: Travis Fremming
travis@seasonalimpressions.com
952-292-4870

Holiday lights going green

It turns out some Christmas trees are more green than others.

Communities seeking to conserve energy are increasingly switching their high-voltage holiday displays to more efficient LED lighting systems.

It costs a little extra to make the conversion, but officials say the payoff comes in dramatically lower electricity bills - and reduced energy consumption.

"Communities would be foolish not to embrace that," said Dale Lythjohan, general manager of Cedarburg's municipal utility.

Cedarburg's holiday tree is decorated entirely with LED lights, and about half of the city's other light displays have been converted, too.

"Without a doubt, there is a significant movement toward doing this," Lythjohan said. "We're not 100% there."

In Oconomowoc, the municipal utility this year celebrated the Christmas season by replacing all its old-fashioned incandescent lights in the city's holiday displays.

That involved purchasing more than 600 strands of LED lights, or some 15,000 individual bulbs.

Dennis Bednarski, general manager of the utility, said the $6,000 investment will pay for itself quickly, with projected energy savings of $2,600 a year.

"It's definitely worth it," he said. "They're just as noticeable, but they don't put out the heat that the old ones do."

The technology of LED, or light emitting diodes, has grown in popularity because it uses about 10% of the energy consumed by incandescent bulbs. Rather than heating a filament inside each bulb, LED lights use a chemical compound that requires much less electricity.

The newer lights also are more durable, lasting as much as 100,000 hours, compared with traditional bulbs that often burn out after just 1,000 hours.

The technological advancement, however, has not been entirely trouble-free.

Early versions of LED lights sometimes had a tendency to emit a blue-colored hue, which was problematic for holiday displays needing plain white lights.

But the color issue has been overcome, and the environmentally friendly lights are turning up in more and more Christmas trees and other displays organized by municipalities and businesses, said Laurie Reinders, product manager with Elm Grove-based supplier Reinders Inc.

In fact, with less electricity needed, some customers are seizing the opportunity to indulge their holiday spirit in bigger displays, Reinders said.

"With LED, you can just go on and on and on," she said. "The bigger, the better."

At Miller Valley's new Holiday Lites display on W. State St. in Milwaukee, a record 200,000 LED lights will twinkle, but the display uses the energy equivalent of just 150 standard bulbs.

The City of Wauwatosa has converted its community Christmas tree, a 25-foot spruce that is covered with energy-efficient lights.

Ken Walbrant, the city's superintendent of parks and forestry, said the old incandescent bulbs required so much power that the holiday display often blew out fuses. Along with such practical concerns, Walbrant said, he appreciates knowing that LED lights are helping the environment by conserving energy.

"It's just the responsible thing to do," he said.

The City of Milwaukee has discovered one other drawback since switching to LED lights three years ago: With relatively little electricity coursing through the strands, squirrels are more likely to chew the cords.

Cecilia Gilbert, speaking for the city's Department of Public Works, said officials have been forced to replace some of Milwaukee's new energy efficient lights.

"There's a price to pay for being environmentally friendly," she said. "We have this commitment to being green."

Tittabawassee Township, Michigan, home sports nearly 83,000 Christmas lights

Gary Shepard's lighting display causes people to stop and take a second look.

"Closer to Christmas, there are cars lined up and down the road," he said.
David A. Sommers | The Saginaw NewsGary A. Shepard has about 83,000 lights in the display at and next to his home at 7320 W. Freeland in Tittabawassee Township.

The residence at 7320 W. Freeland could serve as a runway for planes landing at nearby MBS International Airport. With nearly 83,000 lights, it dwarfs the 58,800 bulbs he used in 2007.

"I have always liked Christmas, and I'm an electrical engineer by profession," said Shepard, 34. "I have always liked displays. I started out small, and I've added something every year."

Readers called The Saginaw News' "Holiday Lighting Hotline" and reported their favorite regional lighting displays.

Shepard's display started in 1999 with a few strands. Now, his lights are coordinated to music.

"For each minute of music, it can take around five or six hours to match up with the lights," Shepard said of the Light-O-Rama system he purchased in 2005. "It's a software package, and you divide the song into twentieths of a second. I can tell the lights when to come on and turn off."

Shepard's home computer controls the show.

His display runs from Dec. 1 to Dec. 31, with light shows starting at 5:30 p.m. and concluding at 10 p.m. each night.

Asked if his wife, Laura, helps put up the light display, Shepard gave a light-hearted response.

"She puts up with me," Shepard joked, saying a friend, Mike Dougherty, helps him with the task each year.

"I started planning in July," he said of this year's display. "I started putting up lights at the end of October, around Halloween."

Shepard said his electric bill doesn't suffer too much, with last year's display adding about $160.

"It's not all that bad," he said. "The lights are not all on at the same time."

Even the bedspread

Ron and Rebecca Morris are open to constructive criticism concerning their display in Fremont Township.
David A. Sommers | The Saginaw NewsRebecca Morris, 34, and her husband Ron Morris, 31, stand in along side their decorated home at 4625 S. Hemlock in Fremont Township. Ron said it took about a week to put up all of their decorations.

"We have every color you can think of," said Rebecca S. Morris, 34. "People will drive by and say, 'You don't have that much blue,' so I will go out and find some blue."

Their home at 4625 S. Hemlock boasts an estimated 5,000 colored, white, multi-colored and light-emitting diode or LED lights. They hang outside the home and garage, are embedded inside plastic snowmen, dangle from Christmas trees and grace reindeer placed around the yard.

"It's something we like to do together," said Ron "Skip" Morris, 31. She likes to make it nice, so people have something to look at."

"We do the whole inside of the house, too, right down to the bedspread" Rebecca Morris said. "It's just progressed. It started out very small with a couple of deer and a tree. Every year, I would get a new snowman.

"Once my husband moved in, he put on icicle lights and other things. This year, my mom gave me some things she doesn't use anymore."

She said the lighting display adds $50 to their December electricity bills.

"It costs us more to run the humidifiers in our house than it does to have the lights outside," Ron Morris laughed.

Too many to count

Sharon K. and James D. Cox have lit up their Saginaw neighborhood for the past 10 years.
Matthew Stephens | The Saginaw NewsJim, 62, and Sharon Cox, 62, of Bridgeport decorate their home, 3819 Peach Street, every year in lights. The couple started setting up their lights two weeks prior to Thanksgiving and still are putting them up.

"This year, we have a few new things, like Santa Claus and his car," said Sharon Cox, 63, of the display at 3819 Peach. "We also have a horse that lights up, instead of reindeer."

She said there are "too many" lights to count.

Cox scours stores after Christmas for decorations on sale, and said their four children have periodically provided decorations.

The couple has had only one problem with their display.

"It was a boy who was new in the neighborhood. He messed up some candy cane lights," she said. "Some of his friends came up and told us. I talked to him and his friends, who were peeved at him because they like the lights."

Cox said the couple used to put up lights for their nine grandchildren but now continue the tradition for their neighbors.

"We do it for the neighborhood kids, so they have something pretty to look at when they are walking around," she said. "They enjoy it."

LED lights shine way for the holidays in Oklahoma City

A tree of brilliant colors lights the intersection of NW 150 and Western Avenue, brightly strung with tens of thousands of bulbs spreading holiday cheer to drivers. This red oak has glimmered brightly in the backyard of Mark and Betsy Rowland’s home for the past four holiday seasons.

Tall twig trees are garnished with tiny white lights and gold-toned, unbreakable plastic ornaments. Photo provided

The Rowlands hire a crew from Total Environment to light the red oak and several other trees in their yard, an enormous project that takes weeks to complete. The colorful culture of Mexico and New Mexico inspired the Rowlands’ display.

"We’ve just always enjoyed Christmas,” Marc Rowland said. "The whole point of it is to have people enjoy Christmas.”

Theirs is an extravagant lighting display with at least 1,000 strands of lights. But if you’re like thousands of Oklahomans, your holiday lighting dreams are big, but your lighting budget may be significantly tighter than the Rowlands’.

To save on outdoor decorations, many experts recommend switching from the old-style incandescent bulbs to new LED (light-emitting diodes) lights this season. While the initial investment is more expensive than incandescent lights, LED lights can last years longer and save you many holiday headaches.

Dan Dunham, owner of 1-800-Lawn-Care and Holiday Lights, said he recommends LED lights for several reasons. They can burn up to 100,000 hours, and they use less electricity than incandescents. LEDs are 80 percent more efficient than traditional Christmas miniature light sets, he said.

According to Christmas Decor of Oklahoma City, if consumers replaced their conventional holiday lights with eco-friendly LEDs, at least 2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity could be saved each month. This energy savings could power 200,000 homes for one year.

"With LEDs, you can take 30 100-foot strings and put them end to end, and it will only draw 2 amps of electricity,” Dunham said. A typical power outlet is usually rated for 10 to 15 amps, he said, and plugging in only a few incandescent strings can cause an outlet to blow. According to Home Depot, you can safely connect up to 80 strands of LED lights.

Additionally, LED lights are harder to break than traditional glass incandescent lights.

"I can drive over one of them with my pickup, and it won’t break it,” Dunham said.

He usually installs photosensitive timers to turn the lights on at dusk and turn them off after a set amount of hours.

If you’re using traditional lights instead of LED bulbs, switch from large bulbs to miniatures. They’re 70 percent more energy-efficient.

210,000 Christmas lights. Computer animated and synchronized to music

http://www.steelcitychristmas.com/

Christmas tree lights up the Green

Two-year-old Alexandrea Overkamp was supposed to wait 10 seconds before pressing the button to light the New Haven Christmas tree. She lasted seven.

“I like pressing buttons,” she said simply.

The annual New Haven Tree Lighting Celebration, presented by the City of New Haven Office of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Parks, Recreation and Trees, drew an estimated 3,000 people to the New Haven Green last night. Through the tree itself, decorated with 20,000 energy-efficient LED lights, may have been the main draw, a slew of family-friendly activities and entertainment began at 4 p.m and kept attendees milling about for hours. While some people complained about the rainy weather, most interviewed said they enjoyed the event, which was free to the public.

“It’s a great way to kick off the Christmas season,” said local Arthur McCormack. He added: “I think I’d prefer that it snowed rather than rained though.”

Deputy Director of Parks and Squares Christy Hass said the ceremony drew a larger crowd than in previous years, noting the importance of this event to the New Haven community.

Said Hass: “It makes people feel very comfortable and at home on the Green.”

The festivities included choir performances, a mechanical-animal safari ride, a carousel and the opportunity to talk to Santa Claus, as well as numerous arts and crafts and free apple cider and hot chocolate. Twenty minutes before the tree, donated by St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church, was lit, the cast of “A Civil War Christmas,” a play currently showing at the Long Wharf Theatre, performed a repertoire of carols, while children scribbled letters to Santa and glued buttons on paper snowman ornaments.

A highlight for many attendees was the arrival of Santa on the back of a New Haven fire truck. Children and adults alike cheered at the man’s entrance and many moved to meet the truck on Temple Street.

“Welcome!” said Santa bellowed. “How is everybody doing tonight?” He was, however, unable to continue greeting the crowd because of a sound system malfunction. He resorted to a good standby: jolly waves and big smiles.

But Santa was not the only attraction. Anja Nikkel, 3, who said Christmas was her favorite time of year, was more excited by an appearance by Frosty the Snowman. “Snowman! Mommy, take me to the snowman!” she squealed, tugging her mother Sarah, a New Haven resident, by the arm.

After an enthusiastic meeting with Frosty, the young girl made a beeline for the carousel on the other side of the Green, leaving her mother running after her. (At least one call was made over the loudspeaker for missing children over the course of the evening.)

Resident Jacqueline Robinson said she anticipated having a hard time convincing her daughter, Onjya, to leave.

“Her eyes lit up,” Robinson said, noting that her daughter was too awed by the lights and people to pass by the festivities.

A favorite of most children interviewed was the animal safari, an attraction that allowed them to ride around a circuit on the back of a mechanical bear, tiger or reindeer. In one family, there was some contention as to which animal was the “coolest,” but four out of five children in the line said they hoped to ride the bear.

A few parents said they appreciated that the event was free of charge, saying that in light of the recent financial downturn it was nice, for a change, to entertain their families without spending money.

“I’m glad to have something on the Green for families to attend without having to worry about the cost,” New Haven resident Vivian Dildy said.

And as evidenced by the smile of her 8-year-old daughter, Kayla, the event was priceless.

Energy-saving LED lights keep holiday displays' bills in check

EL PASO -- Fred Loya enjoys putting smiles on children's faces during the holidays.

And you can bet his East Side home, trimmed with about 140,000 Christmas lights and flashing in sync to the sounds of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, does that well.

But Loya is also putting smiles on proponents of eco-friendly holiday decor -- because most of those festive lights are LED (light-emitting diodes), which are energy-efficient.

"Two years ago, we replaced more than half of the bulbs with LED Lights with the purpose of going green," which also means more green has stayed in his wallet, Loya said.

The switch to more LED lighting led to a savings of $350 in December last year.

In El Paso and elsewhere around the country, more homeowners
are looking into energy-saving lighting as they look for ways to cut costs during this difficult economic season.

Retailers such as Home Depot report that they are doubling their selections of LED string lights, LED yard decor items and artificial trees with LED lighting.

Last year, Home Depot sold more than 40,000 miles of light sets, and the demand continues to rise, experts say.

Craig Fishel, public relations manager for Home Depot, said lollipop walkway lights, multicolored icicle lights, and a variety of yard decor, including a 52-inch crystal bead doe and a soldier sculpture, are among the festive eco-friendly choices.

Loya, who this year has already bought some new lighting features that are energy-efficient, said LED lights work better than incandescent options.

"The lighting is sharper and brighter," he said.

According to Home Depot officials, energy-efficient bulbs use 90 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs and can last up to 10 times longer than traditional Christmas lights.

In addition, they do not produce the same amount of heat that incandescent lights do, meaning there is less risk of trees with LED lighting catching on fire because the lights do not dry out the tree.

Henry Quintana, public relations manager for El Paso Electric Co., recommends people consider buying LED lighting when they need new light strings. But he also has other tips that will help homeowners save money and energy on their holiday lighting this month.

"The amount of time you leave them on also matters," he said. "You can turn them on as it gets dark, around 5:30 or 6 p.m. and then leave them on until midnight."

Quintana said it's also a good idea to put lights on a timer, which also helps prevent leaving the lights on all night unintentionally.

"You also want to turn them off when you leave the house, which is more of a safety issue," he said.