LED madness!

Eric Downing
Web editor and fun page coordinator

LSC kicks other Vermont College's asses in the race for getting LEDs. Eat our dust!

Many members of the Lyndon State College community might not realize that the school has become a leader in the green revolution.

When the college installed LED lights in the Vail parking lot, the pool and both of the gyms, it became the first college in the state of Vermont to do so. LSC is also one of the first colleges to get the lights nationwide. Now the school is getting calls from places such as George Washington University.

Some staff at LSC were quite eager for the school to get the lights. Tom Archer, director of physical plant, said that the VSC Director of Facilities, Richard Ethier, Wayne Hamilton, and he drove nine hours to Connecticut to look at the lights. Seeing the lights in real life helped them make the decision to get LED lights installed at LSC.

The lights were purchased through a company called BetaLED. The school installed 21 light poles in the Vail parking lot, 16 lights each in the Bole gym and swimming pool and 36 lights in the Stannard gym. They replaced the metal halide lights the gyms and pool used to have.

Archer said that before installing the LEDs in the Stannard gym, the lighting was too poor to be legal for NCAA play. Now, the lighting in there exceeds the standard.

“They’re styling,” Archer said about the new lights. “They have zero night sky.”
“Night sky” refers to how much light pollution spills into the area above the lights. With the old lights, a hazy orange glow could be seen above the Vail parking lot even from miles away. Led lights don’t have this problem, mostly because they produce clear light.

Archer said that the community is “super happy” about the new lights, citing that he got at least three phone calls and other statements from the surrounding community already about the difference seen from outside the school.

In addition to the visual advantages of the LEDs, they have some more important features as well. They are much more energy efficient than the old lights, requiring between one-half to two-thirds less energy. This means that the college will save a little on the energy bill.

LEDs also tend to last much longer, with an expected live expectancy of at least 20 years. High pressure sodium, which is what the lights in the parking lot used to be, have a typical life expectancy of little more than a year.

UPDATE: Archer said that the school already has a 10% savings on its energy bill for the last two months as compared to last year.