As Lawrence and Manhattan battle to win a $100,000 contest to see which community can do the best job of saving electricity, here's a business that we ought to get extra points for. Downtown Lawrence now is home to a company that specializes in LED lighting. LED Source® has opened up in office space at 10 E. Ninth Street. Adam Ritchie, owner of the local franchise, said Lawrence stuck out to him as a market that could use a store like his.
"This is the type of place to have this type of business," Ritchie said. "It is a green friendly and an aware type of place, which is important because there have been a lot of mis-education with LED lighting."
Ritchie said many people confuse LED lighting with compact fluorescent bulbs and some of the drawbacks that come with CFLs. Both are longer lasting and use less energy than traditional bulbs, but LEDs don't have some of the slow warm up issues and other drawbacks.
But they do cost a lot more than a traditional light bulb. An LED bulb may cost you around $60. But prices are coming down as the bulbs become more mainstream, and Ritchie said part of his job is to educate people how the bulbs eventually pay for themselves.
He says a typical 50-watt Halogen light bulb will last about 2,500 hours. To get the same amount of light, you could use a 9-watt LED that would last about 40,000 hours. Ritchie estimates the energy and maintenance savings (hey, if you're a business you've got to pay somebody to change it, or perhaps change many of them) equates to about $20 per year.
Ritchie's business works with both homeowners and businesses, but he said he expects a lot of his sales to come from the commercial market because the paybacks are often quicker.
"But if you have a house with a lot of landscape lighting, they pay off quickly in those situations too," he said.
If we really wanted to gain extra points in this competition ( and we do, since the winner receives a $100,000 grant) we would point out as I have previously reported that Lawrence also is home to an LED research and manufacturing firm at the bioscience and technology incubator on KU's West Campus. They ought to just send the $100,000 now.
