LEDs Light Up World Centres

Over the past 5 years many world centres have been undergoing a lighting transformation. Several landmarks across the globe have been switching from traditional incandescent bulbs to LEDs, motivated by the need to save on energy bills and a wish to be more environmentally friendly. Also the LED bulbs long lifetimes ensure these projects will last for many years to come, attracting many tourists and hopefully promoting the use of LEDs in other areas.

Philips Royal was behind some of these projects, with their ‘Future of Light’ campaign, aiming to get Landmarks around the world using efficient LED technology through creative projects, showing the full power and flexibility of LEDs. However, other brands such as Toshiba have also been involved in this LED revolution.

Below are just a few famous landmarks that have become part of this change, although many more have been involved around the world.

Buckingham Palace, London, UK

According to best estimates, there are over 40,000 light bulbs in this royal palace. For traditional incandescent bulbs, that uses about 24,000 kW per hour of energy, but from LED bulbs, this drops dramatically to 400kW per hour for the same light, making a change to LEDs an obvious solution both for high electricity costs and for promoting a cleaner environment. This change actually began in 2006, when Philips were employed to create a new light instillation that would brighten the front of the Palace, but since then other projects have been undertaken, including changing the lights of the Grand Staircase and chandeliers, which can have up to 32 bulbs each.

The Louvre,Paris, France

In 2012, Toshiba converted the lighting in the external pyramids at the Louvre into LEDs as part of their 10 year contract with the museum. Other changes have been planned and some executed to change the external and some internal lighting to LED. The most famous piece in the museum, the Mona Lisa, has a stand-alone, purpose-built LED light source already, to properly illuminate it’s artistic grandeur. With these small adjustments, the Louvre managed to cut annual power consumption by a huge 73%.

The WhiteHouse and the Mall, Washington DC, USA

President Obama’s push for more Green initiatives had to include the Presidential residence in some way and in 2013, the bulbs were switched to LEDs. However, this wasn’t the first public landmark in Washington DC to change.

A year earlier, in 2012, the iconic Mall outside the Capitol building retrofitted 174 of its lamps to LEDs, making an energy saving of 65%, and making the pathways safer due to the brighter lights. President Obama wishes to roll out this plan, converting 1.5 million lamps posts into LEDs across the US. In an interview with CNN, Hugh Martin, CEO of leading light conversion company Sensity Systems, said that not only would this save the US $94 billion per year, but also would allow for the creation of “a network of sensors that gathers data about traffic patterns, weather, parking spots and even terrorism.”

Bayterek Monument, Astana, Kazakstan

This monument may not be the most well known in the world, but hopefully will become more prominent in the lighting industry as Philips created an amazing light show from thousands of LEDs which linked the monument to the Tulpar and Maral bridges on either side. This change in 2014 cut energy costs by an astounding 85% and the LEDs were built to withstand Astana’s extreme weather, where mercury temperature can drop to lows of -17°C in the winter and highs of 27°C in the summer, showing the bulbs durability and adaptability.

The Gateway to India, Mumbai, India

It is in this example we can see the obvious benefits these shows and switches have for LED sales. Philips, who were again behind this lighting project, encouraged direct participation from the people of Mumbai through Twitter and Facebook, as well as their microsite ‘Mumbai In A New Light’, gathering ideas on what the people thought could make the city brighter at night. They created a light show for the landmark, which is expected to be repeated over the next 15 years. After the introduction of this, LED sales in Mumbai spiked 30% more than any other city during the campaign, showing that presenting the benefits of the bulbs in an exciting way does gain the public’s attention and makes LEDs more sought after.

If you think your home or office is landmark worthy, or simply wish it was, why not check out our selection of LED bulbs today? https://www.lampshoponline.com/led-lights.html/

Abigail Houseman