LEDs in Deep Freeze: Light Power Cut Drastically in Cold Storage Warehouse

Albeo Technologies, which produces LED light fixtures, replaced a set of 400-watt metal halide lights at a cold storage unit at Dole, the pineapple people, and cut light power by 95 percent.

Cold storage – along with retail, hotels, streetlights and grocery stores – will be an early market for LED lights. The light from LEDs do not generate heat. Therefore, the air conditioning in cold storage units doesn't have to work as hard. Others have proposed piping in lights with fiber optic cables. (The back of LEDs generate heat, but not the light, so it can be sucked away from produce that needs to be kept cold.). LEDs on retail produce counters won't prematurely age fruit.

LEDs also require less maintenance and hardly every need to be replaced. Hence, industrial users see a quicker payback than consumers, which only gain from lower power consumption.

Lighting consumes approximately 22 percent of the electricity in the U.S. and many light fixtures are inefficient. The incandescent bulb, which will be shoved off the market in the next five years, turns 130 years old on Dec. 31, 2009.

LEDs and lighting controls probably represent the best way to crank down light power. In a recent test, PG&E was able to cut lighting power in office buildings by 50 percent or more with lighting controls.