Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 4:23:26 PM - by Nate Lew

Raleigh, North Carolina, has completed its first solar LED outdoor lighting project at the city’s Parks and Recreation Department Marsh Creek remote operations facility.

This installation, located at New Hope Road and Daly Road, demonstrates the value of light-emitting diodes combined with solar power to deliver illumination at locations not easily accessible for servicing.

LED solar is simply LED lighting powered by solar energy, said energy stored in batteries at night to provide illumination. The serviceability issue is address by the LED bulbs, whose average lifetime of 25,000 hours exceeds conventional incandescent bulbs by 100.

The installation is the cooperative effort of Progress Solar Solutions and LLC of Apex, the city’s contractor of record, and relies on 16 high-performance LED lights combined with solar panels to deliver brilliant white light as independent units.

Each unit has its own long-life, no-maintenance battery, and an internal controller that manages the storage and usage of solar energy, much like an inverter, except this controller turns lights on at dusk and off a dawn – though it can also be programmed to operate on other intervals.

Julian Prosser, the city’s assistant manager, says the combination of low- or no-maintenance lighting, a zero-net footprint and reduced energy costs to the city’s taxpayers made the choice inevitable. But it’s not the first installation LED installation Raleigh has made. In 2007, the city was recognized as an “LED City” when it teamed with Durham-based Cree Inc. to install 141 LED light fixtures on the upper level of the Avery C. Upchurch Government Complex parking garage.

The LED City designation is awarded by a growing community of government and industrial partners working jointly to promote and deploy LED lighting technology across the arc of American municipal infrastructure.

Raleigh has also installed 23 LED streetlights on various local streets, including those around the Raleigh Convention Center, the Convention Center parking lot, and in the Cree Shimmer Wall on the west face of the convention center.

Cree, Inc. is a leader in manufacturing cutting-edge semiconductors that enhance the value and performance of LED’s, as well as power and communications products, via silicon carbide and gallium nitride, which deliver more power in smaller spaces while reducing the amount of heat generated, thus improving performance.

In 2007, Raleigh announced its plan to become the world’s first LED-lit city. This goal, slated for August of 2009, has not quite come to pass, largely due to the current economic downturn, which has even large and prosperous cities like Raleigh scrambling to match tax revenues to capital improvements. As a result, plans to add LED light fixtures along Hillsborough Street appear to be on hold.

Once achieved, however, city officials estimate the budget would be slashed by $80,000 just for parking facility lighting.