North Coast Electric Company

There has been a lot of talk recently about the incandescent light bulb provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. Many have claimed that the government is phasing out or even banning the incandescent light bulb.

As always, there's more to the story.

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I had the opportunity to attend the annual lighting extravaganza called Lightfair a couple weeks ago.
It was literally "eye opening." I can't recall ever seeing the light in quite such spectacular fashion. As expected...the star of the show was LED.

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In the past couple years we have witnessed a meteoric rise in the interest in, and availability of, LED based lighting products.  I'm convinced we are in the middle of a historic and fundamental change in the lighting business being driven by the burgeoning desire to find more energy efficient and environmentally friendly ways to live.  From the perspective of life in the supply channel, it's been an interesting couple of years to say the least! Read more

Fuel efficient cars apparently are not the only way to save energy at the pump. We recently completed an energy efficient lighting upgrade project at a gas station using electronic HID "smart ballasts" from Metrolight and the results look very promising.

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The EPA released a list of the Metropolitan areas with the largest number of energy efficient buildings to garner the EPA Energy Star label. Both Portland and Seattle made the list.

More info is available here:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/b3f51c0c0396abc1852576ee0072db8d!OpenDocument

Tom Woltjer - Energy Solutions Manager

On September 30, 2008 the Energy Star® Solid-State Lighting (SSL) program went into effect starting with a standard for LED Luminaires.

This past December, after a long and arduous process of analysis, the Department of Energy has published the final Energy Star® criteria for LED replacement lamps. Given the somewhat Wild Wild West experience with LED lamp supply we've been experiencing this is welcome news! Unfortunately, due to testing requirements, it will be August before the first official Energy Star® LED lamp list is published but at least now we see the proverbial LED light at the end of the tunnel.

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In case you haven't noticed...what was a rising tide of LED's being brought to market is quickly becoming a Tsunami!

Sometimes it seems as if the only thing standing between us and world peace is that we're not selling enough LED's!

Like any new technology, especially one with so much demand, there are risks as well as rewards.

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North Coast Electric has made the decision to enter the solar energy market. Experts predict that the U.S. will surpass Germany and become the largest market for solar installations in the world by 2011. Also, solar technologies have benefited from extensive research and development over the past two decades, bringing down the delivered price of solar electricity. Read more