The United States Military Academy at West Point, known for its time-honored traditions, is entering the New Year by doing away with one, changing light bulbs. This week the nation’s oldest, continually occupied military post will begin brightening itself up with a semi conductor light source.
ANL Lighting LLC of Poughkeepsie, NY was chosen to retrofit the Army’s lighting system with energy-saving and more durable light-emitting diodes (LEDs). West Point will be one of the first and best-known institutions in the United States to retrofit its primary lighting systems with the new technology. ANL Lighting’s uniqueness is its specialization in LED retrofits that avoid more costly and complicated system replacements.
The Distributor for the project at West Point, Charles Byers of Pleasant Valley Energy Company, noted ANL Lighting was chosen because its products provided significant energy reduction and lighting enhancement. “We project that by switching to LEDs, West Point will save 80 per cent in energy with ANL’s external Veteran-Lite TM fixture, and it will have a much brighter light,” Byers, said. “The savings will be even greater considering that we are able to economically upgrade the existing infrastructure, and avoid the costs and disruption of replacing it entirely.”
Below is a picture of the type of area where they will light up in a classroom or typical office space to LED. As you can see, there is no difference to the eye and GOING TO LED IS CONSIDERED GOING GREEN.
Dropped ceiling equipped with LED lighting
It has been an 88-year-wait for the breakthrough that makes LED illumination practical. President and founder of ANL Lighting, LLC, Andy Neal, studied and worked in Great Britain with many pioneers in the field, and refined his skills in the entertainment field. “At this very moment we are moving from the season of lights into a new age of light that will change the world,” he said.
LED lighting significantly reduces long-term illumination costs. Test show that LEDs are eight times more efficient than incandescent bulbs and last up to 50,000 hours or 25 time longer. A “long –life” incandescent bulb usually lasts only 2,000 hours. A LED switched on today can burn four hours every night and still light up 30 years later.
The latest LED advances come just in time. In two years national efficiency regulations will phase out the incandescent bulb.
More rapid and widespread application of LED illumination has been slowed by relatively higher installation costs, according to Neal. ANL has lowered the cost barrier by using its patented manufacturing processes and by specializing in retrofits. The company’s workforce, of whom disabled military veterans are involved, is at the Mid Hudson Workshop for the Disabled in the City of Poughkeepsie. Neal noted that ANL is located in the Mid-Hudson Valley “because it is one of America’s technological seedbeds and a great place to do well economically while doing good socially and environmentally.”
