Greentech Lead America: GE Lighting announced that its new Evolve LED Scalable Cobrahead lighting fixtures have been installed by Xcel Energy in the city of West St. Paul, Minn., as part of a utility-initiated implementation of LED street lights.
Xcel Energy will monitor performance of the new lights for two years and use the data to develop an LED program for each of the eight states in its service area. The utility maintains approximately 500,000 Xcel Energy and customer-owned street lights.
Xcel Energy has changed 530 high-pressure sodium (100-, 150- and 250-watt) fixtures in West St. Paul to GE’s LED street lights. Data collected during the testing will help the utility decide what sort of LED lighting products provide the most benefit to customers, how to price LED rate options, how much maintenance is required and how frequently it should be performed.
GE Lighting anticipates the switch to provide annual energy savings of about 45 percent.
Xcel Energy funded the $200,000 installation, completed in early 2013.
“These new LED systems have improved the quality of light that our residents rely on to navigate our streets at night,” said West St. Paul Mayor John Zanmiller. “With the help of Xcel Energy and GE Lighting, our community is seeing the promise of a new technology that can yield significant savings. The preliminary data is promising, and other cities—large or small—should keep a keen eye on the results.”
“In recent years, we saw advances in technology—from light distribution patterns, designs of fixtures, and heat-sink efficiency—and we’re really excited for what GE has to offer with the scalable Cobrahead fixture,” said Ed Bieging of Xcel Energy’s outdoor lighting department.