Wal-Mart to Outfit 650 Stores with Cree LEDs in Next Year

By Michael Kenellos

Wal-Mart (WMT), the mega-retailer that helped put energy consumption on the agenda for corporate executives, said it will use light emitting diode lights from Cree (CREE) in new stores and retrofitted ones. In the first year, that will come to 650 stores alone.

The stores will replace ceramic metal halide lights, those honkers you see in the ceiling of big box retailers. The Cree bulbs will emit the same amount of light as a 70-watt bulb but use 82 percent less power.

LEDs have been talked about for years, but are finally going to start appearing in large numbers. Commercial establishments will install them first. The bulbs cut power, and commercial establishments typically have more bulbs, but the bulbs also cut maintenance. LED bulbs last 50,000 hours, far longer than vacuum-tube bulbs. That leads to fewer hours the maintenance people have to climb ladders to replace bulbs, order new bulbs, figure out places to stock the ones that just came in the mail, etc.

LEDs will come to the consumer market, but more slowly. Most people, after all, just change their own bulbs so the cost associated with swapping them is minimal.

The quality of light has also improved with LED bulbs – that "alien autopsy" tone of white is vanishing – and the price is coming down. Need more on lighting? Here's a comprehensive report on the subject that, just by coincidence, I wrote.

In the middle of the decade Wal-Mart started looking at its energy bills and determined that it could whack a lot of operating costs through efficiency. Lighting was an early target. By taking out the light bulbs in the coke machines on the premises, the company saved $1 million a year.

LEDs represent the biggest opportunity in lighting. The second biggest (or first, according to some) will be equipment to network lights so they can be automatically dimmed or turned off.

Comments

[casey00001]

This sounds like a plug.

2009 Nov 06 12:38 PM