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Retailer Energy Alliance Quick Start Lighting Technology Procurement Opportunities Presentation (Text Version)

Below is the text version of the "Quick Start" Lighting Technology Procurement Opportunities Presentation Webcast, presented on January 25, 2008. Speakers include Linda Sandahl, Carol Jones, and Michael Myer of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This webcast provides a technical overview of three lighting technologies identified by the Retailer Energy Alliance (REA) as possible technology procurement projects that could be initiated quickly. Technologies addressed include ceramic metal halide lighting, light-emitting diode (LED) refrigerator case lighting, and LED street lighting. You can also view the slides for this presentation (PDF 631 KB). Download Adobe Reader.

FIRST SLIDE: Building Technologies Program

Rosemarie Bartlett:
Good morning, ladies and gentleman, I'm Rosemarie Bartlett with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and I'd like to welcome you to today's meeting brought to you by the US Department of Energy in support of the Retail Energy Alliance. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode.

Following the presentation, your lines will be un muted for the discussion period, and we would ask that you mute your own line when you're not speaking, and please never put your phone on hold. If your phone does not have a mute button, you can use Star 6 to mute your line and to un mute your line.

A couple of other logistical announcements before we begin. First, the presentation was sent with the e mail, if you'd like to use it to take notes to follow along. Next, you are encouraged to ask questions at any time during the presentation today by using the Question pane on your computer. Questions won't be answered via the computer, but will be answered and discussed live by the presenters and attendees at the end of the presentation. Every time a question is asked on your computer, you will receive an automated response which allows you to ask another question.

Lastly, if you have any trouble with the software today, please dial Star 0 on your phone for technical assistance.

With that, I'd like to turn the meeting over to Linda Sandahl. Linda.

Linda Sandahl:
Welcome, everyone. I'm Linda Sandahl, and I, along with my colleagues, Carol Jones and Michael Myer of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will be providing you with an overview of the three quick start lightening technology procurement opportunities that are being considered by the Retail Energy Alliance.

And this presentation and discussion session is an outgrowth of earlier REA steering committee meetings where we've talked briefly about these technologies, but we really haven't had the chance to talk about them in a lot of depth, so that's what we'll be doing today with the goal being to bring us closer to a decision on our quick start project.

Just one note is that we've also talked about unitary air conditioners, but we won't be addressing those in the discussion and presentation today.

NEXT SLIDE: Presentation Overview

So what are we gonna talk about today? First of all we'll start with me providing just a brief overview of technology procurement and what we mean by that process, and in particular, what we mean by a quick start project focus.

Next, Carol will talk about why lighting's a good candidate for quick start projects, as well the fit with DOE's commercial lighting initiative.

Next, Michael will talk about three lighting technologies that are being considered. And the last about half of this present today will be a question and answer session where each of the retailers and others on the call will have an opportunity to ask questions and share experiences and insights on the different technologies that we're talking about.

As we know, a lot of the retailers have tried some of these technologies and possibly even done some demonstrations, etcetera, so those will be good to hear about.

And as part of the question and discussion period, what we'd like you to do is submit your questions and comments online during the presentation, so you can even start doing that now if you'd like. What we'll do at the end is go through the questions and comments. We'll sort them by technology area, and then address them individually. And at that point, everyone will be un muted so you can chime in as you like.

And to ask a question, what you'll wanna do is use Question pane in the software which you should be able to see at this point.

NEXT SLIDE: Tech Procurement Overview (1)

So what is technology procurement? It's an interactive method of pulling new energy efficient technologies and product into the marketplace. That's kinda the formal definition. It's been used by DOE in the past for reflective CLF's, apartment size refrigerators as well as unitary air conditioners. And it typically involves five steps. The first one is identifying the technology to pursue, which essentially is part of what we're doing right now. Next is developing technical specifications, and this is really an interim process with manufacturers that usually includes a couple different draft specifications. Because before we go out with a solicitation, we want manufacturers to know what it is we're interested in and we wanna get their feedback beforehand so that we can incorporate that and come with the best specification that we can.

Next is issuing the competitive solicitations. And this is when we're able to provide manufacturers a sense of volume from the Retail Energy Alliance so they'll know what sort of volume to expect. It also includes the product specifications and specifications for delivery, warranty, etcetera — pretty much anything else wanna include in there that we'd like to get in their proposal.

When proposals are received, we'll select one or more winning products. And then, again, promoting the winning product through the Retail Energy Alliance.

NEXT SLIDE: Tech Procurement Overview (2)

Now as I mentioned, our initial goal is really a quick start technology procurement. And essentially here the goal is to use the large volumes represented by the Retail Energy Alliance to induce price reductions in products, and possibly some new features. And that's when we go back and forth with specifications we'll see if there are some things that we could get on that in terms of specs.

And why a quick start project? Again, it's really to try relatively straightforward technology procurement and really get all of our feet wet just to see how this process works, and also it offers a near term energy savings to the REA so we can capture some savings early on.

Just one note about the lighting technologies that we're discussing today. There could be some that in terms of, quote, a quick start project they may be a little further out and may be better candidates for REA field demonstrations or other sorts of projects. But the ones that we are considering are all ones that are fairly near term.

NEXT SLIDE: Tech Procurement Overview (3)

Quick start project characteristics. Typically, these technologies are relatively new. They're well established, but they're underutilized in the marketplace. And it's often due to their high initial cost, very low or now technology risk, fundamental changes in the process or the technology aren't required, there's evidence of successful field demonstrations, preferably by REA members, energy savings and performance has been well documented. That shouldn't be a big issue. We should know these products are going to save energy.

Alternative products are present in the marketplace, or there's strong evidence of new products possibly entering the market. So other manufacturers could introduce something. And — with our initial specifications, we sent it to a wide group of manufacturers, and that's really where we find out whether or not manufacturers besides those that are currently in the market might be willing to come out with a new product.

The technology is appropriate for one or more of the REA market sectors, which is general merchandise, grocery, etcetera., and this really gets to volume. We want to make sure that there's plenty of volume represented. And increased manufacturing volume would lead to lower prices. And this is something we will need to investigate once we determine which technology we want to go with.

I just want to mention there are a number of new REA members, some that have even joined since our last meeting. And I know you haven't had much background on technology procurement as the folks that had been part of this group for a while, so we'd certainly be happy to set up a call where we can talk specifically about technology procurement. So that's something sent me a note if you'd like to do that, and we could set that up.

NEXT SLIDE: Quick Start — Lighting?

And with that, I would like to turn it over to Carol.

Carol Jones:
Hello, everybody. I'm gonna take over here just to talk for a short bit about why lighting makes sense as a beginning point for REA with respect to technology procurement. My focus is on lighting. That is my area of specialty, and so I eat, sleep, and breathe lighting. This is what I do, so of course, I admit by bias. But separate from that, it's the obvious easy reason or the obvious reason to start with this is because lighting uses a tremendous amount of energy, 30 to 40 percent of energy consumption in retail applications. So that makes it a big target and a good place to start.

It's also relatively easy as compared to some of the other building systems, and part of the reason for that is that you can actually go in after a building is built, and make changes to the lighting and yield a significant payback. So you get some immediate benefits and it doesn't have to just be a new construction opportunity.

It also has indirect benefits, meaning that when you change your lighting, if you reduce your load and your heat, it can positively impact the HVAC and refrigeration. So it can reduce your cost in your energy consumption directly in other areas, and that's important to looks at the whole building affects of making a change to the lighting.

You can also get some additional benefits by paying attention to where utilities and energy efficiency program sponsors have rebates and incentives. So that's a really good idea as well. Coincident with a technology procurement, looking into any other opportunities would be a great idea, so that can bring cost down even further.

Then last, but most definitely not least, it can factor into the sales, which obviously is the core mission of the retail environment. When you change your lighting, you have the opportunity to make a tangible benefit, and in particular to the customers, and the customer experience is obviously very important.

And so for instance if you were to install a track lighting system using ceramic metal halide, you may have a benefit where it helps to punch out the end caps in a way that is an improvement as compared to what the system used to be, and that can have a benefit in terms of the core mission. And the same can be said about some of the benefits of the refrigerated display case. So we always want to keep an eye out for other reasons to be making these changes above and beyond energy.

NEXT SLIDE: Possible Light Technologies

So we will be looking a few options today. Here is a list of possible lighting technologies for us to consider as a group. And the first ones on the list here would take six to nine months duration. That's our estimate of how long it would take, and that's because the ceramic metal halide lamps and fixtures are indeed established in the marketplace and cost is the primary barrier. And solid state lighting, while it's newer, the LEDs for display cases are a bit newer, they are also really ready to go. And the LED exterior area lighting would take slightly longer because it's a newer product.

So we'll be covering three of these on the list here today, ceramic metal halide, solid state lighting for display cases, and the exterior area lighting with LEDs. Electronic ballasts for HID are on the list as well as options we could consider at a later time. We're not going into detail on those today, but it is on the list as an option for something later on. And also, we could consider as a later opportunity a technology procurement of intelligent ballasts. Dali, just for those who don't know, DALI stands digital addressable lighting interface, and that's what we'll be covering today.

NEW SLIDE: REA and CLI

Linda mentioned the commercial lighting initiative, and many of the folks on the phone may already know what CLI is, but for any new members that may be on the phone today, we want to just makes sure that we have clarity about the Commercial Lighting Initiative. CLI supports the Retail Energy Alliance. You could think of it as sort of a child of our REA. It's focusing on one particular building system, obviously, and there are reasons for that. In essence, it's sort of a different strategy. It's a cross strategy taking a different slice at the same goal.

It shares some members, but we also have some additional members on CLI beyond the retail community. And the reason for that is when you're working in the field of lighting it's a very wise thing to be partnered with utilities towards rebates and incentives and the lighting industry manufacturers, designers, etcetera. So we do have some additional membership on CLI beyond the end user focus, and that supports our specific goals.

One of the things that CLI does is to support applications. And what I mean by that is it dives deeply into the challenges around lighting design. And we do that by creating solutions, and it's dubbed Lighting Solutions for use by retailers. And these lighting solutions use many different technologies. So we're not pursuing one technology and then the next and then the next. Instead, we're looking at overall applications.

The reason why that's important in terms of the REA is that some of our lighting solutions include technologies that we're talking about today. So what that means is that if one of the retailers in REA is interested in using a lighting solution it would be smart to reduce the cost of some of those technologies, so therein lies the benefit of having this dovetailed relationship where the technology procurements can make the implementation of the lighting solutions more feasible by reducing the costs.

So these are synergistic programs and different strategies supporting the same goal. Specifically the CMH track and the refrigerated display cases are found in several of the lighting solutions. So we've just wanted to make sure that everybody on the phone understood how these efforts relate to each other and support each other so that we don't have anybody wondering what CLI is in relationship to REA. It's here to support you. And with that, I will turn it over to Michael Myer, and Michael's gonna cover the three different lighting technologies and give you all sorts of background on the technologies, and also on the applications.

And I just wanna make a note that he'll be going application by application. And the reason why that matters is that it's not so much that you're gonna find a silver bullet with a particular technology. One technology may succeed over a different technology in the context of a particular application, but a different technology may be a better answer for a different type of building or situation. So that's why we have organized this in a particular way. We'll be looking at these competing technologies within their real context, and we hope that helps you to be able to understand the benefits and the value.

With that, Michael.

NEW SLIDE: Ceramic Metal Halide

Michael Myer:
Thanks, Carol. So ceramic metal halide is a technology that has been around for about 40 years. Ceramic metal halide is a similar version to metal halide. The main difference between the two technologies is that ceramic metal halide is a whiter source and it renders color. And in the lighting industry, there's a metric called color-rendering index. And really what that metric means is the ability of a light source to render colors accurately.

Whereas, normal metal halide has a 65 to 70 CRI value, and that's on a scale of 1 to 100. CMH has a value in the neighborhood of 85. So it is similar to most metal halide lamps, but it is used for the improved color, and that matters for retailers when you're trying to discern the difference between two colors of red in fabrics, for example.

Typical characteristics of both metal halide and ceramic metal halide: it's a long life source, 10,000 to 20,000 hours. It's the fourth most efficient light source overall, second most efficient white source. The technology does not dim well. It can be dimmed. It just doesn't want to and it's really hard, and it's actually energy inefficient to do it. But in terms of retail, it's really not important because you're not dimming a lot in retail. It also cannot be quickly turned on and off, and that's an important part load shedding or to know that these lamps take a couple minutes to turn on in the morning. But that's, again, not that important in retail since your store's usually operating before the doors open.

It requires a ballast, and that is significant in most applications because in normal lighting, let's say in incandescent, you don't need a ballast. And a ballast is a device that operates the light bulb.

For metal halide, this device can be quite large or quite small, depending on the type of ballast. There also is an additional price point on the fixture because it's an additional piece of equipment that you have to acquire.

Typical CMH retail application would be high bay or low bay fixtures, track lighting, down lighting, and parking lot lighting.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for High Bay

This is just an image of a typical high bay fixture. That's about it.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for High Bay?

So why would you consider using CMH for high bay? Typically right now metal halide is used in high way or low bay applications, and I'm gonna explain the difference. High bay is about any application where your fixture's gonna be mounted really above 20 feet a low bay is really below 20 feet. That's the main difference. And the luminaires tend to look very similar. They have slightly different reflector properties so they can distribute light differently. Metal halide has poor lumen maintenance.

What lumen maintenance means is that when the light output which is measured in lumens, it's initially rated at let's say 10,000 lumens, over the course of its output it will produce less and less lumens so at the end of its life it's only producing about 60 percent of the initial lumens. That's considered poor lumen maintenance.

Again, color rendering is low, and there are limited lamp options and lamp power. And this is just the lamps move in units such as you have a 70 watt lamp, a 100 watt lamp, and a 150 watt, and you may not have the 125 watt lamp that you ideally want. Now you can get around that in many other ways in design, but that's just something that needs to be addressed.

Why you do CMH in high bay and or low bay applications is that because of its long life, but more because of its high color rendering.

Utilities and EEPS are already offering rebates for replacing standard metal halide with CMH. In fact, I've been in stores at Babies R-Us and Anthropology where they're using this technology already. There's many others, but those are that I've been in.

A competitor towards CMH high bay and low bay fixtures is what's known as high intensity fluorescent. And why it's a competitor is that fluorescent has virtually lumen maintenance. At the start of the lamp's life to the end of the lamp's life it will only degrade 5 percent. That's quite impressive. Color is really good in all fluorescents.

You don't have to specify between two different types of lamps. It's got a one and a half times longer life, so it's gonna operate at least 24,000 hours. You can also with high intensity fluorescent fixtures, it's make up of many lamps sources, so you can do different things where you may only want five lamps on or six lamps on, so you can choose your light output options very differently with HIF fixtures.

Also, you can integrate controls into fluorescent very easily. It can be dimmed. So if you were going to do something with demand response, fluorescent's really easy to do. Whereas, I mentioned earlier metal halide really doesn't wanna be dimmed or turned on and off. And about 40 percent of high bay applications are actually being converted over to this HIF. Utilities and EEPS are actually offering rebates also for the swap out.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Track (1)

Moving onto the next application, this is an image of ceramic metal halide used in track applications. This is a high end niche retail store.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Track (2)

Typically track lamps in luminaires use what's known as a reflectorized lamp, and that's what you see over on the right. This lamp has both a reflector in it and a lens on the outside, so it's sealed. So really unlike other luminaires, this lamp is doing all the work. It's directing the light. It's providing the light. It's providing the beam distribution. And that's typical for track, whether it's halogen or metal halide.

Typically, you're gonna use halogen, but halogen's inefficient. It's got a great color. It's actually the standard that you use when you define the metric. It's extremely short lived though. It's 6,000 hours. It's available in numerous size and options, meaning that you can get ones that are very small to very large. You have numerous wattages, that's 50 watt, 60 watt, 70 watt. And you also have many light distributions, whether or not it's a narrow flood, live flood, narrow spot, or spot. And so there's a lot of reasons why you'd want this different distribution.

It's a cheap lamp, and it's a cheap luminaire. Conversely, ceramic metal halide is 2 to 2.5 times more efficient. It has high CRI, about an 85, whereas halogen's about 100. It's got a long life. So halogen, probably replacing that lamp away one and a half years. CMH, you're replacing it every two to four years, and that's significant maintenance savings in terms of expenses.

When I say multiple lamp options with limitations, in metal halide you're gonna only have certain wattages. It'll be a 35 watt, 70 watt, 100 watt, and you're gonna have a narrow flood. Those are your options. You don't always need halide if it's a 15 degree spot or a 10 degree spot. Not all applications really need to get to that fine specificity of distribution.

These lamps are moderately priced around $55.00. Bu the luminaire is more expensive than the halogen. And a lot of that cost actually is in the ballast, as I mentioned earlier.

NEW SLIDE: PAR Lamp Technology Comparison

This slide is a comparison of three PAR sources side by side. On the far left, that's incandescent PAR. And the lamp that I showed you earlier, that's what's called a PAR lamp. It means it's a parabolic reflector lamp.

The lamp in the middle is a halogen PAR, which is slightly more efficient than the first lamp. And then finally on the far right is a metal halide PAR lamp, in this case, ceramic metal halide, and it's the most efficient.

What you see in the next line are the foot-candles, which is the amount of light being produced on those pictures. The incandescent is putting 320-foot candles, and the metal halide is putting 640-foot candles. So for twice the amount of light, you're only 20 percent of the power. That's a significant energy savings.

And then if you look at the life, the incandescent's only 1,500 hours, the halogen's 2,000 hours, and the metal halide's 9,000 hours. Maintenance costs really factor in here.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Track (1)

Moving onto a comparison of the two technologies against each other, you have halogen on one line and ceramic metal halide on the lower line. You see that ceramic metal halide had longer life. They're both high in CRI. But the CMH saves energy. Halogen's really main best characteristic is that it comes in numerous distributions.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Track (2)

This slide is an image of three actual currently available track fixtures. The one on the left is just a halogen PAR fixture, and the one in the middle is a slightly older model, but it's still community available of a metal halide PAR fixture. That object on the right that looks huge like a brick is what used to be the electronic ballast there. As I mentioned earlier, the ballast is the device that turns on the lamp and operates the lamp while it's working. And so they used to be really that large.

The one on the right is a newer model released by the same company, and that cylinder on the right is the ballast again. So if you look at the image on the far left and image on the far right, they look virtually the same, yet the luminaire on the right is two and a half times more efficient.

Now they have also started looking at LED dedicated track luminaires. They just don't have enough products on the market yet for this to be considered an operation currently for a quick start procurement. Maybe in a couple years that will be an option.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Track (3)

There are currently some early adopters in proven demonstrations of using CMH for track lighting. Those retailers include LL Bean, Macy's Bloomingdales, of those type store, groceries stores such as Hanaford and Price Chopper. Grocery stores typically use CMH track lighting in two places, the produce area to highlight different fruits in vegetables or on the end caps to really highlight a sale and to direct focus.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Track (4)

This image of just down lighting 'cause ceramic metal halide is an option in down lighting for retail applications.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Down Lighting (1)

When you consider down lighting, you really have three sources, halogen, ceramic metal halide, and CFL. First we'll discuss halogen and ceramic metal halide side by side. Halogen, as I said, is inefficient, but it's got great color. As I said before, it's very short life.

Halogen of all light sources when it starts operating, it will produce the same amount of life until the end of life. It has numerous options in terms of size and wattage. It's a cheap lamp and a cheap luminaire. But again, metal halide is two and a half times more efficient. It's great color. Another big thing is its long life. If you look at lamp above at 6,000 hours, ceramic metal halide's 10,000 to 20,000 hours. That's significant.

Something that needs to be addressed, though, is light output depreciation, so it's 40 percent. So at the end of life, it's only producing 50 percent of the original lumen it started with. And that's significant to be addressed.

There are multiple options. It's a moderately priced lamp, but it's also a more expensive luminaire.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Down Lighting (2)

The next option for down lighting is compact fluorescent. It's roughly three times more efficient than halogen. It has good color. It's got good life, but we're not calling it great because it's 12,000 hours, and when you look at metal halide, it's 20,000 hours is its upper limit. So we're gonna put it in the good category.

It has a little light out depreciation, but not much. It has specific wattage ranges. It's moderately price, and it's limited by ceiling height. And this is important because the way a compact fluorescent fixture is designed, it has the lamp in the center and then the reflector around it. And because of the size of the lamp itself, it's hard to design for certain ceiling heights. So anything really above 12 feet, you really can't use compact fluorescent without having to use more fixtures, and then that really doesn't make an energy efficient application when you consider against ceramic metal halide.

Now the compact fluorescent does contain mercury, and that's just something that needs to be aware. Some retailers have really tight specifications on being extremely green. Mercury is not bad. It's actually needed to make these light sources extremely efficient, and it just needs to be addressed that the source does contain mercury, so everyone knows that.

Ceramic metal halide is three times more efficient than halogen. Now if you will compare the two slides, earlier I said it was two to two and half times as efficient. In the earlier slide I was referring to a reflectorized lamp, which is not as efficient as a non reflectorized ceramic metal halide lamp. And when you design a down light with a non reflectorized lamp, you can actually get more efficiency out of it than from a reflectorized lamp. But this is a really fine detail, but I just wanted to address the difficult between those two numbers.

And the rest of this you've seen before. The long life, the moderate light out depreciation, but it also contains mercury.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Down Lighting (3)

The next slide is a comparison of technologies. So you see halogen on the top, CFL, and then CMH below it. Notice the CFL and CMH are both considered long life sources. When you're factoring in what light sources you're gonna use in different ceiling heights, it's important to understand your sources. Halogen you can use over 12 feet, so can you with CMH, but you really can't use it with CFL.

You have numerous light output options with halogen. But all three are considered high CRI sources, two of 'em contain mercury, but only CSLs and the CMH lamps save energy. And that's important.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Parking Lot Lighting (1)

Next, we're gonna address ceramic metal halide for parking lot lighting. This is just a typical parking lot luminaire.

NEW SLIDE: CMH for Parking Lot Lighting (2)

The four typical sources you would have in parking lot lighting would be metal halide, ceramic metal halide, high pressure sodium, and LEDs.

We talked earlier about metal halide. It's poor lumen maintenance, color rendering is low. It's in 65. And it has a life of 10,000 to 20,000 hours. It's important to know that color rending in a parking lot is not really important. You're not expected to evaluate colors. You really need to be able to identify your car, but you're not discerning between two types of reds or blues, so it's really not important.

You could use CMH in exterior applications for better color, but as I just mentioned, it's not as important.

High pressure sodium is often used because it also has virtually no lumen depreciation over time, but it color rendering is extremely low. It's a value 22 out of a possible 100, so that means it's really poor. But its life is 24,000 hours plus, so if you assume that these lights are operating half the day through the night, every day of the year, they're operating 4,000 hours a year, so you're not re lamping these fixtures for every six years. And thinking that these fixtures might be 25 or 30 feet above the pavement, that's quite important because it leads to serious maintenance savings.

Another source that's entering this area is light emitting diodes. These are great because they have virtually no lumen maintenance. When I say "virtually," we're talking 1 to 2 percent. Color rendering is good, and they have a life over 50,000 hours. So if you use the 4,000 hours per year of operation, that means you're not replacing these for 12 years, and that's a significant maintenance savings as well in terms of costs.

NEW SLIDE: Ceramic Metal Halide

So to recap, the barriers to market acceptance for ceramic metal halide include that the lamp is only part of solution. You also have the fixture and the ballast, and the ballast roughly is 60 percent of additional costs. The other costs include higher voltage sockets and wiring, so those have to be addressed.

Incentives to market acceptance for this technology, utilities and EEPS offer financial incentives for these lamps across the board. It's not just in track. They offer 'em in high bay and low bay, and down lighting. A lot of the rebates are written around just replacing metal halide or high‑pressure sodium wattage with the correct ceramic metal halide wattage. So you have a lot of flexibility in some of these rebate programs.

And then also more restrictive energy codes will force the use of this technology. Energy codes only allow so much power to be installed in a space, and as the allowance reduces every three years as the new energy codes are issued, that requires more efficient technology to be installed.

NEW SLIDE: LED Parking Lot Lighting (1)

The next technology we're gonna discuss is LED parking lot lighting. This image here is great because it shows a great comparison of high pressure sodium on the right side, and LEDs on the left side. If this parking lot was lighted with metal halide, the image on the left would look very similar as well, but this does a great comparison between the appearance of the sources.

NEW SLIDE: LED Parking Lot Lighting (2)

High pressure sodium, as we saw in the earlier picture, appears drab, has a low CRI, but it's an extremely efficient source. It's cheap. Every major lamp manufacturer makes the light bulb, and every major luminaire manufacturer also makes many fixtures for it. So that drives down the price, which makes it a very economical source.

It's extremely long lived, which again affects maintenance, which affects a lot of different payback scenarios. Though the source does contain mercury, it's what helps its efficiency.

The option would be LED lighting. It's got great color, great CRI, has good light distribution. It's good with lighting controls, which means that you could turn off some of the lights at night very easily, or you could 'em with an occupancy sensor, which is important. Right now it has a long payback, but we'll address more of that later.

Few manufacturers make the technology. That's beginning to change. And in a couple years, we'll see more of a change, and that'll affect the price of the luminaires. When more manufacturers make it, it'll force competition, which will drive down the price.

It's extremely long life, 30,000 to 50,000 hours. These numbers can be even longer. It just depends on a couple of the factors. And they're mercury free.

NEW SLIDE: LED Parking Lot Lighting (3)

The other option would be to use metal halide. We addressed earlier probably why you wouldn't need to use ceramic metal halide because the color rending in the parking lot is not as important. But it's a white light source. It's efficient. It's gonna decrease in output over time. And, again, like HPS, a lot of lamp manufacturers make it and a lot of luminaire manufacturers make equipment for it, and it contains mercury.

The same selling points with LED lighting apply for metal halide as they did with high pressure sodium.

NEW SLIDE: LED Parking Lot Lighting (4)

This is just a basic comparison again of the three options you have. HPS and LED are the only two sources that are considered long life, and they're the only two that really have a constant light out. But metal halide and LED are the only ones with a desirable color. HPS and metal halide both contain mercury, where LED doesn't. So that's important to know.

NEW SLIDE: LED Parking Lot Lighting (5)

The economics of parking lots are different than interior lighting mainly because the lighting is used in off peak hours which means it's extremely cheap electricity. Your most expensive electricity is around 2:00 in the afternoon because that's when demand is there. And the demand is a part of your electrify bill. So any savings you see during the daytime has an effect both on your reduction in kilowatt hours, as well as in kilowatts.

But at night, we don't see the same thing, so the economics are very different. That's one of the things that affects the payback scenario for LED parking lot lighting. Currently, it's not competitive with retrofits, but in the near future it will be. The technology is extremely competitive with new construction.

The three images you're see — the one on the left is what's known as a shoebox luminaire because it's very boxy and that's great name for it. Those range in $300.00 to $650.00 range, so that's a fair price range for those. And those can be ceramic metal halide and metal halide or HPS.

The one in the middle is what would be more of a designer style for something very stylistic, but we refer to it as an architectural style luminaire. And those range from $800.00 to $1,000.00, and that's a typical price. They can be a little more. They can be a little less. But that's a fair idea. And that source is either HPS or metal halide as well.

And then on the far right, you see the lamp where it's $18.00 to $50.00. So that's gives you an idea of the payback of the prices and the economics of parking lot lighting.

NEW SLIDE: LED Parking Lot Lighting (6)

We did some analysis looking at the possible payback of a retrofit for the two different sources. So what you're seeing is on the left is the payback in number of years, and on the bottom the different electricity rates possible. The top curved line is the number — as price of electricity increases, how payback decreases. And the bottom curved magenta line is the same thing, only for metal halide, so you're payback gets better when retrofitting metal halide as your price of electrify increases.

This graph is based on today's current technology and current LED luminaire prices.

NEW SLIDE: LED Parking Lot Lighting (7)

We did more research using DOE analysis as well as industry analysis which predicts that the LEDs will increase every year and prices will decrease every year. And we did an analysis looking at the next five years, what the projected payback would be for retrofit applications against an existing metal halide installation and an existing high-pressure sodium installation. And you look that in two years, the payback in metal halide gets very favorable and high-pressure sodium changes drastically as well.

So LED improvements are coming, and at a quite rapid space. So it's important to know that.

NEW SLIDE: LED Parking Lot Lighting (8)

Barriers to market acceptance with LED parking lighting. A limited number of manufacturers — it has to be one of the biggest ones because that's what's affecting price. Without enough competition, prices kind of remain high.

The next excellent is exaggerated performance. With any new technology, people claim benefits that really aren't there yet, and it's hard for the general public to really be able to sort through the fine details.

The Department of Energy has a number of programs out there already that already examine the performance of this type of technology. As well as part of the whole procurement process, a specification based on good performance would be developed. So that's less of an issue, but it's something that needs to be addressed.

The other and final barrier is the long payback in retrofit applications. But there are also incentives to market acceptance. ASHRAE/IESKA Standard 90.1 is the energy code for a number of states across the United States. What it states is that for a parking lot, their new code in 2010 will have the requirement that for parking lots it'll have the square footage and then it'll be allowed wattage of lights that can be installed in that parking lot. And this is new. This has not happened before, and that'll require more efficient sources to be used in parking lots.

Title 24 and the Model Lighting Ordinance both require lighting curfews. This is that at a certain point in the night, the lighting in the parking lot should turn off or reduce by half. The Model Lighting Ordinance, that's a model code developed by the IES and some other agencies so municipalities can adopt it and have a strong coherent lighting code.

The California Lighting Technology Center is actually developing an occupancy sensor for parking lots so that if no one's in the parking lots, the lights can reduce by a certain percentage which is one of the reasons that you — it's needed because of Title 24 on the MLL.

And then as we saw on the earlier graph, steep annual reductions in cost projected by LED industry and DOE are going to help with marketing acceptance of this technology.

NEW SLIDE: LED Lighted Display Cases (1)

Moving onto the last and final technology is LED-lighted display cases. This is a great image of the current installation in California. It's of ice cream. And everybody loves ice cream, so we thought it'd be a good image.

NEW SLIDE: LED Lighted Display Cases (2)

LED-lighted display cases are good for grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores like Circle K or 7-Eleven, big box stores like Wal-Mart or Costco or BJs. Ideally, any store with a high display case to floor ratio will see a really easy payback with this technology.

NEW SLIDE: LED Lighted Display Cases (3)

Currently display cases are lighted by fluorescent stripes within the case. Fluorescent's used because of its great color. But the down side is that without a reflector, fluorescent lights don't really distribute light properly and so that's why you tend to see hot spots on the edges and a dark center in those type of cases.

Also, a big problem with fluorescent is that as the operating temperature around the lamp decreases, so does the output of the lamp. So in a medium-to low-temperature display case, you're not getting the full benefit of your fluorescent because it just can't compete in the cold environment. Though they're cheap, they're long-life, and they contain mercury. So those are some of the other items about fluorescent cases.

In contrast, LEDs are good color as well. And the design of LED's allow for great light distribution within a case. It allows for a very evenly lighted display case, unlike fluorescent.

LEDs love the cold. They're essentially a circuit chip, and so the colder they get, the more efficient they get. So that's an idea application for 'em.

Current payback for these retrofit applications is ballast two and five years. You'll see your shortest payback if use an occupancy sensor, which means that in a 24-hour store, if no one's in the aisle between let's 2:00 a.m. And 4:00 a.m., some type of sensor is reducing the light output in those cases. That's a significant savings.

They're long-life sources and they're mercury-free.

NEW SLIDE: LED Lighted Display Cases (4)

So in a comparison of the two technologies side by side, we see that LEDs really are the longest life source possible, have great distribution, they reduce the cooling load, and they save energy, unlike fluorescent.

NEW SLIDE: LED Lighted Display Cases (5)

Barriers to market acceptance. Currently the technology is treated more of a demonstration than a standard, and we have little wide-scale use of the technology.

Incentives to the market acceptance, though, are the DOE's upcoming determination. The Department of Energy is required to come up with an efficiency standard for this appliance which means that in previous years manufacturers were not required to have the product meet any type of efficiency standards which now they'll have to actually meet at least some level of efficiency which will require more efficiency technologies to be used.

Other energy savings potential exists for the motors and the cooling devices, so there's a lot of work being done in refrigerated display cases which will lead to more market acceptance of LEDs being used.

And then some utilities EEPS are currently offering rebates for this technology.

NEW SLIDE: LED Lighted Display Cases (6)

Early adopters and proven demonstrations of these type of cases include Wal-Mart, Walgreen, Price Chopper (Audio Skips) Albertson's Costco.

NEW SLIDE: Summary

There's at least a company here that you probably shop at right now and probably has a case in the store with it.

So in summary, these are the benefits and possible disadvantages of using some of these different technologies.

Carol addressed earlier that there's an application for each source or each technology. Ceramic metal halides, yes, they're great for high-bay, but they have to compete with high-intensity fluorescent, so there's something that we have to be aware of. Track lighting, great. It's a good idea. Down lighting; also a good idea. They have their uses in certain ceiling heights.

In terms of outdoor parking lot lighting, really it's a non-starter.

In terms of LED parking lighting, they're just gonna last a lot longer than either high-pressure sodium or metal halide. They're mercury-free, which is good. They save energy, and they have no light degradation, so it makes sense of why you would consider using LED parking lot lighting.

LED refrigerated display cases. This is a really easy idea of rather than fluorescent because it's gonna reduce your cooling load. So it's not only saving energy by being a more efficient light source, it's adding less heat into the display case, and that's reducing the cooling load in the display case, so you're saving energy on actually two fronts.

NEW SLIDE: Questions, Discussion, Next Steps

And they have great life, so that if someone tries to buy something, you're not gonna have a darkened display case all of a sudden.

And we are now going to move into questions, discussions, and next steps.

Rosemarie Bartlett:
Great. Thank you Michael and Carol. This ends the presentation portion of the meeting and now we'd like to move into a question-and-answer session where we can address questions, engage in a discussion. And any of the retailers that are on the call, I know some of you have had some experience with these technologies, so we would love to hear about that.

We'll start by going through questions and comments that came in during the presentation, but it doesn't look like we got a whole lot of them.

I see one person is interested in getting up to speed on session on technology procurement, so I will follow up on that. And if anyone else is interested, just probably the easiest way is to send in a note on the Questions pane in here and I'll get back to you on that.

Just a few ground rules before we get started. Conference Plus has un-muted everyone at this point, but please stay muted until you're ready to speak. Also, don't put your phone on hold, otherwise we will end up hearing your company music. And if you could state your name when you share your thoughts, that would be helpful.

With that, I would like to turn it over to Mike and Carol.

Carol Jones:
Hello. Surprisingly silent with the questions that came in, so I'll just open it up and see — I'm wondering if that means that it was overly confusing or very, very simple and everybody understood what was presented. How are you guys feeling about all this information that was dumped on you today?

Male:
This is Dwayne Schwell with Best Buy, and we already use ceramic metal halide light fixtures for both track lighting and our high bays. I think our next step would be utilizing the LED lighting technologies in place of some of the MR16 lighting that we use, and possibly looking at replacing the ceramic metal halide as well.

At what point are we going to see the price of LED lighting be comparable to the ceramic metal halide as far as price?

Michael Myer:
This is Mike Myer. I think you're gonna see that off for a little bit for a while when you're comparing it to — it sounds like you're right now asking about track applications. Or are you talking more of a high-bay application?

Male:
Actually, both. But I would focus on track lighting first. We have quite an installed base of high-bay ceramic metal halides, and I don't see us making a rapid change from that. But I think as we change our interiors and our displays and our interior design, the track lighting is something that we have more of an opportunity of embracing new technology on.

Michael Myer:
Okay. Thanks for clarifying it just so I could better answer the question.

My first response is that LEDs are coming down. Projections are about 27 percent per year, and there's different ways to calculate what those percentages means. So they're coming down and they're also getting more efficient.

The next problem with LEDs especially in making its foray into the track market really is heat issue and what you're doing with what your driver. CMH has the ballast, LEDs have a driver which operates the device so the big problem with LEDs and why they have not made such a splash in the track market yet is that, again, you have these drivers that are still quite large and are also quite heat-sensitive. And so they're having some problems with that.

There was a major track manufacturer in the United States who had actually rolled out an LED-based product, but recently has actually pulled it off the market because they were just having some problems. It was not meeting the exact efficiency standards that they had wanted for it in their specification, and they were having some other issues for it.

I would say realistically to get a number of manufacturers out there, you're gonna look at about four to five years before it's gonna be competitive with CMH.

Male:
Thank you.

Male:
This is Ralph Williams at Wal-Mart. We also use ceramic metal halide and have for several years. What we didn't (Skip in Audio) — because of the technology and the costs for the electronic ballasts which we started (Skip in Audio). And I think that makes that ceramic metal halide fixture a lot better.

And we're also looking at the next step which is to go to the LED, especially for track lighting and lower applications, like produce and things like that. Looking at the produce first because the LED light beam itself doesn't contain IR or — so it doesn't heat up the produce because the shelf life would be significantly longer.

And right now we're actually gonna be doing a full-scale test within the next several weeks. Based on our economics it looks like it probably will be a fairly good payback. The only real issue that we have is making sure that the manufacturer's claim are correct, and that's the testing part.

Carol Jones:
Ralph, it's Carol here.

Male:
Uh-huh. Hey.

Carol Jones:
Which source is it that you're gonna be testing (Skip in Audio)?

Male:
Which stores?

Carol Jones:
Which source? Which LED track applications?

Male:
We've got several that we're in the middle here, and I've got to find the actual manufacturer. Well, I've got it right here 'cause he just called me. If you're asking the application, it's gonna be over produce and we're gonna do about 40 fixtures.

Carol Jones:
And so the type of technology you're looking at is an LED that is essentially doing a job in track, so it's like an LED version of a track light.

Male:
It is an LED version of a track light. The heat sink essentially is the fixture. I haven't heard — and that's something I'll certainly follow up — that the drivers themselves were heat sensitive and they were having trouble with them. They're more like a ballast or made for 90-degrees C or whatever. I haven't heard that part. But the LED fixture itself, the junction temperature, getting that airflow around it is very important, so a lot of these are very minimal looking fixtures because the heat sink on the outside of the fixture actually looks like a reflector, which obviously LED's gonna have to have. So —

Carol Jones:
And we like that. We like that a lot. Whenever the manufacturers are creative about how to deal the heat, I just love to see that. And I've seen a number of the LED fixtures —

Male:
We're replacing 70-watt ceramic metal halide, and think system-wise, it's 18 per head.

Carol Jones:
Okay.

Male:
So anyway, we'll be testing that and certainly we'll share our results to the REA or the CLI or —

Michael Myer:
This is Mike again. The only thing that I failed to kind of articulate best in my presentation — and this is something that when you go to consider LEDs — is that when you start talking about specific track applications, you can't only look at a lumen-based design.

You actually need also consider intensity so that in most track applications you deal with either a flood lamp or a spot lamp. So while something might be more efficacious in terms of how many lumens it produces, you should also be aware of what the candela distribution in terms of angle as well as intensity is, because that's really what you're doing with track is that you're highlighting something.

So you don't wanna just look at lumens, and that's a deviation from most lighting. But in track, in retail especially, you're really talking about intensities, and so really just wanna also make sure you're comparing that.

Now I'm not discounting what Ralph just said. I'm just saying when we talk about this, we should also make sure that we're using the correct metrics. And for track applications, beam and angle and intensity are really important.

Male:
This is Ralph again. What we are testing has the same beam angle as the ceramic metal halide, and it has about the same lumen output.

Now, again, every time we look at the LEDs, we try not to go and say, "I've got to have 260 foot candles." What we do is say, "This is what we have now," and like you said, we make sure the application's right and the metrics are right, and then we test and see whether that light distribution would give us the same affect. It may be a lower light level, but it might give us the same affect. And then have the energy environmental benefit.

So, yeah, we do understand that. It was the same thing in the LEDs in the refrigerated cases. We didn't get the same lumen, the same light output, or the same distribution, but it was certainly a better affect.

Carol Jones:
Right. For folks who may not understand this, part of what we're talking about here is that LEDs are more directional in nature. And what we mean by that is it's more pointed, less fuzzy. I don't know if that lingo works for people. But that could be a real advantage depending on the application. That's part of the reason why we're talking about: How exactly do you compare these different sources? Because there is a lot of different between them.

And the directionality of LEDs is an efficiency issue because you're able to control your light much more carefully. And in the track application, I see that as a benefit in general.

So one of the things I wanna say, Ralph, is first of all, thank you for being innovative and looking into these technologies at the leading edge here. And what I would love to learn from your test installation is obviously we wanna measure all the efficiency, the color, and especially the performance. And I'm sure you're looking for all those same things.

I'd be curious to see what happens with depreciation. The heat issue — there is a heat sensitivity at the LED, and also at the driver. The focus has mostly been at the LED, which is why I think Ralph, you're correct since having heard more about that.

If you overheat an LED, it has a pretty dramatic impact on the amount of light that comes out. It (Skip in Audio) — color and (Skip in Audio) — life. So that becomes a very important thing. We'll be watching carefully do see do these fixtures perform well over time.

Another thing that we're gonna wanna look at very carefully is the color constancy between the different LEDs. The color issues with LED are quite different from the more traditional sources. And so that's gonna be an important issue both with respect to the core temperature and the color rendering.

The LED manufacturers use something called binning which is a fairly new concept where they're trying to create a consistency across the products that are delivered .and that's very, very important to customers, so I'll be curious to see how that goes as well.

Wouldn't it be great if it we're a shorter period a time. Maybe it's not four or five years out. Maybe it's half that, or maybe it's much closer than we expect. You can see from what we went through this morning that one of the criteria for what we call a quick-start technology procurement is proven installation.

And so what I'm hearing, Ralph, is that you're looking into this right now. So that will be certainly a factor in whether or not we consider moving forward more quickly with LED track lighting. Obviously, part of our interest here is to protect all of the members of REA and your customers to make sure that there isn't any disappointment here. So, again, thank you very much, Ralph. (Skip in Audio) — really look forward to hearing what you (Skip in Audio) —

Male:
It would be interesting as we talk to the different manufacturers — everybody's got a lotta tests going on it seems like with LED (Skip in Audio) — and it would be interesting to know if any of the Retail Energy Alliance members, if any of those are testing, if they would also be willing to share it with the group to find out what they found pro and con with their installation.

Carol Jones:
Absolutely. I wanna shift gears a little bit and ask a question following up on what Dwayne had said earlier about the ceramic metal halide. And so I'm curious about a couple things. One is that, Dwayne, if you are already using ceramic metal halide both in the high-bay and low-bay applications as well as track, is that preclude your interest in a large-scale volume — cost, or would you say, "Yeah, that's great. That just makes it easier for us"? So that's one question. And the other is I'd like to hear from other folks as well about whether or not you're using ceramic metal halide. Does your willingness to use CMH make it even more interesting in terms of a volume purchase or not?

Male:
This is Dwayne. I'll go ahead and answer your question. When we went in and changed from the metal halide to the ceramic metal halide fixture, we were using an electronic ballast, so we do dim the lights down to a point that's 70 percent. And we also were able to, because of the higher efficiency of the fixture itself, were able to install fewer light fixtures.

So typically in a store that's 45,000 square feet, we went from about 176 light fixtures each running at a little over 450 watts down to 100 light fixtures that were ceramic metal halide, and these are all 320-watt lamps. And then now we're dimming them down and we're getting still the same 65- to 70-foot candle light level that we experienced before.

We do use a clear lens or shroud on the unit itself. So we're quite happy. We obviously do pay more for the fixture. I would say about 50 percent more cost. But because we're using fewer of them and they're more efficient, by making that switch we get our payback within the first two years.

So, obviously, we'd be interested in less expensive ceramic metal halide, which we've been using for just over a year now. And we'd also be interested in less expensive ceramic metal halide for track lighting. Again, I think we're going to continue to use the ceramic metal halide fixture. I'm hoping that it gets less expensive. But we're also interested in LED technology for a number of reasons, especially for we produce a lot of heat inside of our buildings. And so if we can reduce the amount of heat generated by the lighting system, that helps offset some of the energy or the cooling costs. So we hope LED technology matures and becomes less expensive.

Carol Jones:
Thank you. Thanks for that information. I agree with you that the whole building analysis is really important. The ancillary impacts of changing your lighting are very important and it really improves the picture when you consider that.

How are other folks feeling about CMH, either in high and low bay, or the track lighting applications? I think we've got Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy — and I'm trying look at my list to make sure I'm caught up. Who else is on the phone? I'm curious to see just to try and get a sense from everybody who's on the phone about your usage of those sources or openness to moving forward in this (Skip in Audio).

Female:
This is Cheryl Pinkovitch. I'm with Target, and currently we are not using any metal halide, directional, track or _____ fixtures in our stores. I don't anticipate that we would be adding a lot of that, not to say that it's not a possibility. But I would say at this time, that's not a niche in the market that we're pursuing. LED is a whole 'nother story. We're looking at that in a number of applications and starting some test.

Carol Jones:
Okay, thank you. Thank you for the feedback. What ere the test that you're looking into for LED?

Female:
Refrigeration and some display lighting.

Carol Jones:
Okay. Michael, did you have a question for Cheryl?

Michael Myer:
I just really wanted to know — Target really doesn't do a lot of track display lighting to begin with, do they?

Female:
No. Currently, we have none in our stores.

Michael Myer:
Okay. You're not really against the CMH. It's just you don't have any real track to begin with, so that —

Female:
Right, exactly. We don't have an application that we would use it. We're certainly not against it. Actually, we have it in a few down lights, but very minimal usage. As far as display lighting right now, we're not doing any of that.

Michael Myer:
Yep. That's fine. Thank you.

Male:
Well, again for Wal-Mart, we do use quite a few — probably around 150 (Skip in Audio) — per project, mostly over produce areas and grocery areas, produce (Skip in Audio) — bakery areas. But we really trying to move forward, finding legitimate LED (Skip in Audio) — and it think as Cheryl (Skip in Audio) — said, we're trying to get with a testing firm like On Stack or somebody that can try to validate some of the claims, do some accelerated life testing or some other types of third-party testing that'll give us some confidence. Right now all we'd get is a warranty. We require everything to be a five-year warranty if it's an LED product.

Michael Myer:
I think this is not a planned foray, but it's a great — Ralph was mentioning something that I don't think he might be aware of or some of the other members on the phone call are. The Department of Energy has two programs, and _____ actually manages parts of these programs. One is known as CALiPER. And what this is, is a third-party review of manufacturer's claims about products. It has a solid-state focus, but they actually do also compare other non-solid-state produces, even halogen and CFLs, especially when it's a product that's been introduced to compete against those. So that's available.

The easiest way to put it in a search engine is just type in Caliper, it's C-A-L little I, capital P-E-R. And it's managed I believe — it'll have nettle N-P-E-L in its URL. And another one is the Department of Energy has an ongoing solid-state lighting demonstration program where they try to partner a site, whether it's a Kohl's, a Costco, or something like that — even the post office, actually, has inquired about becoming a partner. And then they also partner a manufacturer somebody who makes a product that wants to demonstrate its energy efficiency as well improved performance in the marketplace.

Most recently, they did a street light where they replaced current existing high-pressure sodium with LED fixtures. Another installation they've done area lighting outside an FAA building. These easiest way to find that one is if you just, again, in a search engine type in SSL Demonstrations, it comes up really fast. And, again, it'll have nell and T-E-L in its URL.

Carol Jones:
We can also send you the links for that information.

Female:
This is Rita Harold from the Illuminating Engineering Society. We've been working with DOE on developing a couple of documents for LED testing, and one will be published I'm hoping within the next month for use by the manufacturers. It'll be an approved method for electrical and photometric measurements in solid-state lighting products. So that hopefully will bring some uniformity to some of the testing and reporting.

Carol Jones:
Rita, that's an excellent point. LED's are not an orange or a banana or an apple. They're kiwis. They're so entirely different. And the ability to measure their performance in standardized way is absolutely critical to protect consumers, and so I have to say that DIS has moved very, very rapidly to developed these new procedures. I don't think I've seen this happen so fast historically. So it's quite impressive that it's gonna be published so (Skip in Audio) — a lot of activity there.

Male:
This is Ralph. I think for most of us, being an end user, the photometrics — and I understand the electrical characteristics of it. But it's how long it's gonna last, whether it's really a well-put-together fixture. Because it does rely so much on heat dissipation and those types of proper junction temperature for life and for (Skip in Audio). Those are the things that I look at and get scared about. But if we're trying to move the LED forward into the mainstream, how do we get the synergy of the DOE and the CLI and IESNA into coming up with those procedures very (Skip in Audio) — accelerated life.

Female:
This is Rita, again. I think that this is just the first one of a series of testing documents that you'll see coming forth, not just from IES, but from some of the other organizations. So I think there'll be a whole suite of these for the manufacturers to test to.

Male:
Okay.

Carol Jones:
Yes. That's another thing that we can send you on e-mail is the status on the standards development. Rita's correct. There are several that are being done. The photometric testing, the life, all of these things are very much in the works which will certainly help the market advance of the technology in a way that is safer, more reliable, and more measurable and that sort of thing.

It occurs to me as we talk about this that it would be really useful to have a consistent information-sharing process. Part of what REA has wanted to do in terms of goals and missions, some of it had — technology procurement was one aspect, but another one was certainly information sharing and best practices.

So I think moving forward it would be interesting to have sort of an organized forum where people can report back on what they've learned in their various demonstrations, and we could certainly share the progress of the OE demonstrations _____ directly from the retailers and get updates on independent testing and standards development. The Energy Star specification is something that we've worked long and hard on, so that's important as well.

Am I forgetting any other areas in LED? I think that kind of covers most of them.

So in order to get a sense of what makes sense on the ceramic metal halide, it will be useful to get feedback from you guys on the interview questions that we've put together. So to see whether or not a volume procurement is actually helpful for those who want to use ceramic metal halide or any of the other technologies, we would want to see from you do you use it now. Would you consider using it in the future? What are the positives? What are the negatives? What have your experiences been, etcetera?

So getting that information back from you will help us to be able to go a little deeper and look into the possibilities.

So we've covered CMH and we've talked a little about LED display lighting and we've heard a tidbit here and there about the refrigerated case lights. Is there anything else that folks wanna offer up about the LED lighted display cases either in terms of experience or interest?

Female:
This is Cheryl Pinkovitch from Target again. One comment that we are getting from our merchants all the time is the inconsistency in color in the LEDs. And one thing that we've found is that between manufacturers that Manufacturer A will say, "This LED is 4,000 degrees Kelvin, and the next manufacture will say there is 4,000 degrees Kelvin, and they look nothing alike.

I'm wondering, Rita, is your information addressing that in getting a more consistent testing?

Female:
Yes. There's also going to be a publication coming shortly, I hope, on the color issue. So, again, for testing purposes for the manufacturers.

Michael Myer:
Cheryl, there's a couple of metrics in lighting. Color temperature is the appearance of the source, and that's what this number 4,000 Kelvin is. And the way it's measured, it's a mathematical formula, and so it's actually possible to have two different light sources have the same 4,100 value, but actually appear differently. So that's not as uncommon an argument. You can actually even see that even in fluorescent and other sources, but it's a little different. And LEDs are much more known of it.

You should be looking more towards CRI. That's a more important metric because it's not just about the appearance of the light — and I'm not talking that CCT is not an issue. It is an issue. But you also wanna look at its CRI. And then if you're really getting to the technical specification, there are other coordinates such as XY and some other actual information that become really important to know.

When we get around to doing a technical specification for the REA, we will include these different things and we'll try to provide more of an acceptable tolerance and how they calculate it to prevent exactly what you're saying where you have Manufacturer A giving you one number and Manufacturer B giving you the similar number, and yet a different appearance. And there are ways to — I don't wanna say safeguard, but there's ways to reduce the range in how those numbers are calculated.

Female:
Right. I understand that. And we were asking for the same CRI from each manufacturer. And with the development of LEDs, it really is cutting edge and they're changing every day and we've just found that there are huge variations in what people are claiming is an 85-CRI 4,000 degree or whatever color temperature, we've had a variety of them. And we see it everywhere.

Carol Jones:
I hear what you're saying, and that is an area of real concern and something that is terribly important in retail. Some of the other applications, different types of buildings, it's not gonna be as important. But when you're selling a product and the lighting is rendering an appearance, that is mission critical. So that's exactly one of those things that we need to safeguard or pay attention to, share results, and then perhaps develop some parameters about how and when to go forward.

My worse nightmare would be using — let me back up. If we're all coordinated and we share information and we proceed at a pace that is _____ speed, but not super quick, a measured pace forward with sufficient information, asking the right questions and getting good answers before leaping, then I think that's a much better way to go. And my worse nightmare is if we weren't talking to each other or if there were no way to be measuring these very things.

I think with our putting our heads together and talking about our experiences and figuring out from a perspective of, "What is the criteria for success?" it's gonna be a much better situation. The whole situation is improved by coordination of communication as opposed to everybody being off on their own experimenting and running into problems. And then you've got a whole bunch of people who end being disappointed. That then really jeopardizes the over all market acceptance of LEDs and especially phenomenal opportunities that we certainly did not want to see that happen.

We really just hit on one of the — I don't wanna call a sore point, but one of the areas of great sensitivity with respect to LED is color. It's a mission issue. It will impact sales. If there's poor color or inconsistent color, it's gonna be something where the customers are responding to that without even necessarily knowing it. Some customers may notice _____, others are influenced by color and their behaviors and choices are influenced, and they may not even know why.

So it's definitely something to continue to talk about as we gather and have our phone call.

So is there anybody else who wants to offer up experiences about LED display cases? I know Wal-Mart has had a lot of experience with this. I would love to, at a future time, maybe go into some detail about what your lessons learned were and what's critical for success. I know the occupancy centers are part of it. Do you wanna share with us about that, Ralph?

Male:
Well, on the refrigerated cases lighting for glass doors, that's gone very, very well for us. We've had very few failures. We've got about 750 stores. Out of 180 doors probably — so we have a lot of product (Skip in Audio) — feel very good about the specification, about the longevity. But it's in its perfect environment, also, very cold.

We expect to get seven to ten years, but then the technology will be ready to be replaced long before that. But with the sensors what we've seen if you have a 24-hour location or a location like _____, the convenience stores is just a great application whereas, there's a peak time. I think the sensors work very, very well. And there's (Skip in Audio) — but out there, there are two manufacturers, Watch Stopper, and Sensor Switch, that have developed sensors for refrigerated case aisles. So they have the long sort of oblong pattern so that — but it's a very good ideal situation for illuminating just the case just before a customer gets in that _____. So it's worked out very well for us.

Carol Jones:
That's terrific. And I think it merits more discussion at a future time to be able to share the best practices and consider that as a quick-start experiment.

Male:
Well, one of the —

Carol Jones:
We're getting kind of close to time here, so I don't want to miss the opportunity to check in with people about the parking lot lighting, and then just take a minute or two to see if this phone call met your expectations or if you have any suggestions for future discussion. So let's start with parking lot lighting and see if we can get some feedback on the interest level. Who do people feel about what was presented today? Is there interest?

What are you using now? Is it a split between metal halide and high-pressure sodium in your parking lot?

Female:
This is Cheryl Pinkovitch, again, at Target. We pretty much exclusively are using metal halide parking lot lighting. LED is on our radar screen. We haven't really even begun to research it, but I think we all know it's out there and it'll be interesting.

Carol Jones:
So you're open-minded and curious.

Female:
Yes. That's probably about exactly where we are. (Laughs)

Carol Jones:
That sounds good. That's a good place to be.

Female:
Not ready to jump, but we'll watch.

Carol Jones:
Good. So it's worth us continuing to look into it and get you some information and pursue the discussion. Are others in a fairly similar place with respect to LED parking lot lighting?

Male:
Yeah, this is Dave O'Shenski of the Home Depot. We're basically just like Target. We'd like to look at LED lighting if it can be cost-effective. I know right now in its early stages it's usually pretty expensive.

Michael Myer:
What source is Home Depot typically using in their parking lot?

Male:
The same thing as Target does.

Michael Myer:
Okay. Have you guys started planning buildings in California? And how are you dealing with the curfew?

Male:
We're looking into that right now 'cause I know they changed all the Title 24 stuff which affects us inside the store, too.

Michael Myer:
Okay.

Male:
So we're reviewing that right now.

Michael Myer:
Okay.

Carol Jones:
California usually leads the way.

Male:
(Chuckles) Yeah.

Male:
This is Ralph at Wal-Mart. We're gonna be testing some LEDs. We've already got several fixtures up. But we're gonna be testing a lot within two months. That's kind of our entry into the LED spot lighting. Are people still there?

Carol Jones:
Yeah.

Male:
(Laughs) I couldn't hear anything. The economics are kind of like sign lighting. It'll be maintenance-driven versus energy-driven. But we're still getting some fairly good payback based mostly on the fact that it's a security system. It's there at night and it's there for the customers and customer safety. So when a light goes out, we normally don't wait for a whole bunch of 'em to go out. We send our service and service moves the bucket truck and _____ at a time you replace an $11.00 lamp it can be $300.00.

So having a long-life fixture, which should be somewhere in the 10 to 15-year lifespan of that fixture with the technology distance they're talking about today where you don't have to open it up, don't have to — once you open up a parking lot — in HID, we'd use metal halide, the seal is always broken. Seems like they never get 'em on right. Then they fill up with dust and dirt and stuff. We're feeling pretty good about at least the economics of it.

Like you say, there's not a lotta third parties out there that are testing all the claims. But if as you say, right now we're working with Beta, which you showed a picture, which is rude lighting, and then GE Illumination's coming out with a pretty solid fixture light.

Michael Myer:
This is Mike again. Yeah, Ralph, you made a great point. Especially for parking lot lighting, maintenance is driving the payback on those significantly. We're seeing in some applications it can severely change the payback just because when you start really looking at maintenance costs, especially for metal halide, and you're doing it every three years, it's very expensive.

And I'd like to just put in kind of a note. I've talked to a couple of different manufacturers and in the lighting world, the big rollout is this big tradeshow called Light Fair, and that happens towards the end of May usually. And I've talked to at least three different manufacturers who are gonna have products available for debut at Light Fair for this specific application. So probably come summer, it'll be a different situation where — it's harder to find people right now because everyone's kind of holding off getting their product ready. And these are really reputable companies that I know that are ready to bring their product to market. So come summer, it'll be a different story with available of product.

Male:
I think the Clinton initiative kind of focused on street lighting, which to me is almost a different animal than sight lighting because of the different pattern. Most of those are Type 2 or 3. Parking lot tends to be max to min makes a lotta different. Like you saw in the picture, that tells the story, too, about LEDs. If you can get a max to min right now, I think our specs maybe six to one, but if you can get one to one, do you have to have four-foot candles? Do you have to have three-foot candles? Do you have to have two? All the cameras work better. People's eyes work better.

So yeah, developing a spec that actually takes technology and not just come up against metal halide, if you're trying to get whatever light level (Skip in Audio) – presently have, doubt you'll make it economy for a while. But if you look at it just like you did with the case lighting and say, "We don't need these huge pools of light," or, "We don't need a 2,000-lumen lamp. What we need is even light distribution, and the life of the product _____," the customer sees it. So that's where we're working. But again, having the specifications has certainly helped moved it along a little, taking in to all the durations, photopic, optic, and better color rendering, that sorta thing.

Carol Jones:
Right. Well, this has been a really great discussion. I'm very appreciative of everybody's input and background. And I think, Linda, you wanna let us know what the next steps are gonna be and _____ people about the questionnaires and we can close out our call.

Linda Sandahl:
Yes. Thanks everyone for participating. This was really informative and I think helps us get towards our goal which is making a decision on a quick-start technology.

Carol mentioned that the questionnaire that was sent out a week or two ago to retailers. I've gotten three of those back, and we're hoping to get the rest of 'em by next Thursday, January 31st.

Let's see. One person asked about getting a copy of the presentation. And in the reminder note that was sent out yesterday, there was a PDF attached, so you should have that. If not, give me a call at 503-417-77554 and I can certainly get that to you.

One other thing to mention is that we did record the presentation. Some people weren't able to attend so we wanted to make sure they could watch it afterwards. So I will be sending out a link to that streaming video so you can watch it or share it with others.

The next REA Steering Committee meeting is February 4th I believe, so we can follow up at that point on this call and decide on some next steps.

Again —

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