There’s a great commentary on Forbes.com right now by Bill Watkins, CEO of Bridgelux. Watkins describes how LEDs will revolutionize lighting in the next few years and delineates the impact of LEDs on energy consumption. If you’re looking to brush up on your energy facts or better prepare yourself for the coming lighting revolution, check this out.

We are pleased to announce today a partnership with First U.S. Finance (FUSF) to provide LED lamp, luminaire, and control systems leasing on a national scale.  Now Seesmart® LED commercial customers can look to FUSF for assistance in financing new lighting installations and retrofits.  Financing packages are available from $15,000.00.

Through the FUSF leasing program, Seesmart customers can receive 100% financing for Seesmart lighting products, control systems, product installation and product training. The program offers Seesmart customers fast credit approval and the ability to easily upgrade from old lighting technology to industry- leading Seesmart LED lighting products.  A variety of financing options and terms are available and can be customized for each client through major national lenders.

For more information about FUSF, please visit http://www.firstusfinance.com/.

Seesmart knows commercial buildings. Many of our top-selling products (LED tube lights, high bays, and PAR lights) find their way home in these structures. Can you think of the last doctor’s office, retail store or office building you were in that didn’t bear rows and rows of fluorescent tube lights? Our line of LED lamps is designed to replace just that type of unsightly, flickering, humming, mercury-filled product.

Consequently, Seesmart also knows how much energy commercial buildings use. And even progressive, environmentally-conscious California doesn’t seem to be doing a great job at establishing and enforcing effective energy standards for these buildings.

A new study by Next 10 and Collaborative Economics has found that little is being done to reduce commercial building energy usage– which accounts for 37% of statewide energy consumption– and that many structures are enormously inefficient. California currently lacks energy efficiency standards for existing buildings and state standards for new buildings, the study finds, could be much more stringent.

The study stipulates that efficiency improvements in commercial buildings could reduce their power use by 50% with relatively simple and inexpensive upgrades to lighting and insulation.  In fact, a switch to LED lighting in these buildings can reduce total energy use by 10-20%. Overall, commercial buildings in California waste as much as 80% of the energy they consume.

Via The Thin Green Line, GreenBiz

Did you know that the fonts you type and print in can have a significant impact on your wallet and the environment?

A recent study by Printer.Com compared the ink usage of 10 popular fonts on two different printers, a Canon Pixma MP 210 and Brother HL-2140. The printers were kept at their default settings. The most popular font, Arial, was used as the baseline for the study.

Of the fonts examined, Century Gothic was the most printer-friendly, potentially producing 31% savings per year compared to Arial. That translates to a savings $20 a year for an individual using 25 pages per week, $80 per year for a business using 250 pages per week. Ecofont followed shortly behind Century Gothic, then Times Roman, Calibri, Verdana, Arial, Sans Serif, Trebuchet, Tahoma, and Franklin Gothic Medium.

But Associated Press writer Dinesh Ramde makes a valid point not addressed by the Printer.com study: there can be tradeoffs between ink usage and paper usage. Fonts that use less ink may actually consume more paper. Century Gothic, for example, is wider than many fonts, and therefore occupies more space on a page than Arial.

So what is a consumer to do to conserve both paper and ink? Common resource-saving techniques include using smaller (but still readable) fonts, printing in draft mode, printing double-sided documents, and avoiding printing whenever possible. Microsoft’s font selection for Office 2007 was inspired by this last tactic-preventing printing. The company claims it selected Calibri and Cambria as its defaults for the 2007 software package because these fonts are more aesthetically pleasing on a computer screen and therefore less likely to compel a reader to print a document unnecessarily.

A related side note: Seesmart®’s two primary fonts for all digital and printed materials are Calibri and Arial.

Via: Yahoo! News, Printer.com

A new report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. predicts that the growing demand for LEDs will propel the global market to $14.8 billion by 2015. Current wide-scale uses of LEDs include indoor and outdoor lighting, computers, televisions, cell phones, signs and displays, and indicator lights. In 2009, cell phones constituted the largest end-use for LEDs, accounting for over ¼ of sales. Long-term growth of the market, however, will likely be sustained by LEDs’ increasing use in general lighting applications. Global phase-outs of incandescent bulbs and government quests for more efficient lighting products are helping to fuel demand for LEDs. GIA’s study also anticipates that the price of LEDs will drop as the technology continues to improve. Oh yes, it will be a good 5 years for LEDs.

Via PRWeb.

What would happen to America if all its citizens replaced their older, less-efficient lighting with LEDs? Well, the country would probably save $120 million in energy. That’s over 1,400 terawatt hours of electricity and equivalent to the output of 24 power plants. Wow. Read up on the DOE’s report on LED lighting at SmartPlanet. Or check out the original DOE report here.

Via SmartPlanet.

We’ve got a pretty new PAR light we’re releasing today. It’s a 6 Watt PAR 38 that puts out around 600 lumens. We’ll have a spec sheet for you up on our site soon.  Yay!

Our pretty new PAR

A new report by researchers the University of Pittsburgh provides more impetus to ditch those unsightly, flickering, orange high pressure sodium streetlights in favor of LEDs. Researchers examined the entire lifecycle from production to disposal of high pressure sodium (HPS), metal halide, induction, and LED streetlights and found that the comparatively low overall environmental impact and long lifespan of LEDs makes them the ideal choice for streetlighting.

Although LED manufacturing is somewhat energy-intensive and failure to recycle LEDs generates waste, the Pittsburgh report found that because LEDs contain no mercury, fewer toxic materials, use less energy to operate, and last for such a long time, they are a better buy. And although LEDs may initially be more expensive, they often cost much less than other technologies in the long-term because they require no maintenance, are more energy-efficient, and last three to five times longer than HPS and metal halide lamps. In some cases, induction streetlights may cost a little less and last for slightly longer than LEDs, but their environmental impact during operation is greater. The researchers noted that LED technology is also the most promising technology and very likely to make further gains in the near future.

Seesmart offers a variety of street and parking lot lights ranging from 36W to 300W. Our products are 90% reusable and backed by a three- or five-year warranty. If you’re in the market for streetlights, check them out here. You may want to peruse the Pittsburgh study results for yourself, too.

Via Energy Efficiency News, University of Pittsburgh

One of Seesmart’s chief objectives is to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. The vast majority of LEDs and LED lamp components are still manufactured in Southeast Asia. At this point, it is very difficult for US companies in this market to compete with countries such as China. Seesmart has already established one manufacturing facility in Southern California and we are continuously investigating partnerships that would enable us to forge ahead with the expansion of US production. This is a feat we can’t achieve completely independently, although we would like to.  We hope that Washington really will make it easier for green tech companies to move production and jobs back to the U.S. and grow without foreign investment. See what our CEO Ken Ames had to say about this on the CBS Evening News.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Yep, it’s true. And here’s the official press release.

Seesmart® LED and L.A. Lighting partner in efforts towards serving the LED market with a complete LED lamp and luminaire solution

Manufacturers join forces to advance LED marketplace through cooperative partnership agreement

Los Angeles, CA. - February 15, 2010 - Seesmart, Inc. a developer and manufacturer of solid-state lighting technology, announced today that it has partnered with Los Angeles Lighting, a commercial lighting luminaire leader, based in Los Angeles, CA. This partnership will allow both Seesmart and L.A. Lighting the opportunity to provide the only ETL listed and approved complete LED luminaires.

“Partnering with L.A. Lighting gives us the ability to provide the very best lighting fixture technology to our clients in a variety of forms and fashions to integrate with our LED lighting products,” said Raymond Sjolseth, President of Seesmart LED. “Our mutual commitment to quality and manufacturing in the USA will enable Seesmart LED and L.A. Lighting to be at the center of the dynamic and rapidly growing LED industry.”

“We are pleased to have Seesmart LED as a as a valued business partner offering quality, dependable and efficient LED light products at a variety of pricing value points,” said Bill Shapiro, President of L.A. Lighting. “L.A. Lighting continues to innovate in USA manufacturing and has taken the necessary expansion efforts that will enable us to meet the increasing demand for LED lighting”.

About Seesmart LED

Seesmart LED is a complete LED Lighting Solutions Company with decades of experience in product development, manufacturing, production and research and development. Seesmart offers a broad product line to meet most commercial or residential needs and delivers rapid ROI, high-quality products backed by up to a five-year warranty, immediate energy savings, and true retrofit solutions. For more information, please visit www.seesmartled.com.

About L.A. Lighting

L.A. Lighting specializes in the manufacturing of lighting fixtures. With over 25 years in expertise, we have built our reputation by offering cost-effective, state-of-the-art lighting products delivered on time with the highest of quality. L.A. Lighting is committed to the lighting specifier, electrical distributor and electrical contractor in our mutual endeavor to provide the construction industry with the highest level of products and service. For more info, please visit www.lalighting.com.