Heard in the Channel: LEDs make inroads on Long Island

LED technology continues to make inroads in many end markets, and local municipalities may just be leading the way. In a recent noteworthy project, the town of Oyster Bay, New York, installed 2,500 of a planned 4,000 LED street lights throughout the town, to the tune of big savings for the municipality’s energy bill.

The project is part of an upgrade of its high-pressure sodium (HPS) lights to energy-efficient LED lighting along 750 miles of Oyster Bay roadway. The project is being funded by a $2 million Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and is expected to yield up to $200,000 in savings. The town is installing LEDway street lights from Durham, N.C.-based manufacturer Cree.

“LED lights have made huge strides regarding energy savings and life span,” said Oyster Bay town supervisor John Venditto. “These new LED lights will save 50 percent of the amount of energy consumed by the previous high pressure sodium bulbs. By replacing 10 percent of the existing HPS street lights within the town, the town stands to save $200,000 annually on our electric bill and maintenance costs.”

Cree’s LEDway lights are designed to provide a 100,000 hour lifespan and are made in the United States—two key reasons the town chose them.

“Cree’s LEDway street lights are helping to drive the adoption of LED lighting for municipalities like Oyster Bay that need to address rising energy and maintenance costs,” said Christopher Ruud, vice president global sales, Cree lighting. “With our LEDway street lights, cities and towns don’t have to sacrifice anything for beautiful, energy-efficient light that benefits their residents and the bottom line.”

In other news, distributor element14 announced the launch of a new microsite dedicated to wireless power. The distributor is partnering with Texas Instruments, Wurth Electronics and Cadsoft EAGLE PCB software to help accelerate the integration of wireless power solutions in applications such as the smart phones, digital cameras and MP3 players.

Among the site’s features is a product Road Test that will offer selected design engineers transmitter manager and receiver solutions from TI and Wurth plus EAGLE V6 software, at no cost. “Road Testers” are asked to post their product evaluations at element14.com to benefit their colleagues and the online community

More News

In other news:

Avnet Inc.was named to the 2012 InformationWeek 500 as a Top 100 Technology Innovator. Avnet was honored for its global shop floor control system that allows customers to seamlessly manage device programming worldwide and gain deeper visibility into the production process. The distributor also announced that its Avnet Embedded business, a division of Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas, strengthened its software and services offering in the Americas by adding a team of technical experts in local markets to provide in-depth software advice to design customers. The distributor is also adding products from two new suppliers to the Americas offering: InduSoft, which provides SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) software technology, and itSoftware, which offers innovative Windows security solutions.
TTI Inc. launched the latest episode of its video series The Specialist this month. Entitled “TTI Forever,” it’s available for viewing at http://www.ttiinc.com/page/the-specialist.html. The distributor also announced an internal script writing contest for a special Christmas edition of The Specialist series. TTI employees throughout North America are invited to submit their best story idea for the chance to a win a trip to corporate headquarters and a day on the set with the Specialist and the rest of the film crew.
Mouser has received the ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 certification, which covers requirements necessary to plan, implement and maintain an electrostatic discharge (ESD) control program to protect electronic parts, assemblies and equipment susceptible to ESD damage from Human Body Model (HBM) discharges greater than or equal to Class 0.
United Kingdom-based distributor RS Components is celebrating its 75^th year in business. RS is a division of electrocomponents plc, which also owns North American distributor Allied Electronics.

Other companies were making headlines with new distribution agreements:

Avnet Electronics Marketing Americassigned anagreement withTriad Semiconductor,which designsand manufacturesconfigurablelow-cost mixed signal ASICs based on via-configurable array (VCA). Avnet EM also announced a new deal with MathWorks, offering a new development kit that combines a MathWorks software package with the Xilinx Kintex-7FPGA Development Kit with High-Speed Analog. The new kit features a robust software package that includes MATLAB®, Simulink®, HDL Coder™, and several other MathWorks products, allowing engineers to use Model-Based Design to design, test, and implement algorithms on Xilinx FPGAs.
In other Avnet news, Avnet Embedded announced a new distribution agreement with congatec, Inc., maker of embedded computer modules. Avnet will provide congtatec’s provide its complete line of computer-on-modules in the Americas.
Mouserannounced a new worldwide distribution agreement with Integrated Device Technology, Inc., maker of high-performance analog, mixed signal and power management semiconductors.
RS Components signed a global distribution agreement with FCI Electronics Division, a maker of connectors and interconnect systems.