LED and CRE - Why now? Based upon proven reliability, quality and long life, it makes sense

The commercial use of LEDs is nothing new to the modern world - they've been around for over thirty years, everybody knows the name and understands what they do. Or do they? When people envision an LED, they usually think of the point light sources that appear in household electronics, remote controls and other small appliances. However, it also needs to be envisioned as the inevitable replacement to the traditional commercial lighting products, such as fluorescent tubes and incandescent fixtures, which have mounting operating costs and diminishing useful lives. With the industry chatter focusing on replacement and retrofitting of traditional bulbs with LED bulbs and installing new LED fixtures, a primary drawback is sometimes the capital investment necessary for this initial conversion. The rationale is that it's a wise strategy to wait until the prices fall and, by that time, the one-time cost savings would be easier to absorb. However, this thinking is only likely to result in higher costs in the long run. On average, the savings realized by switching to LED lighting are 60-90% of lighting energy costs. These ongoing savings are far greater than any one time savings resulting from a delay in the capital project on the prospect that prices will fall. Moreover, because of the ever increasing costs of raw materials, the decrease in the price of LED lighting is unlikely to be as dramatic as the earlier reductions experienced in consumer electronic categories such as flat panel TVs where the price reductions were related more to increased screen yields than to raw material costs. Xeleum's ongoing development efforts will continue to focus on utilization of the latest technologies to increase light output while minimizing the energy consumed. Based upon the proven reliability, quality and long life of LED products, it certainly makes a great deal of business sense to begin the conversion from convention lighting, especially in this metropolitan area where the cost of electric energy is already among the highest in the nation. Mehrdad Ghalebi is the president of Xeleum Lighting, Mount Kisko, N.Y.