Search This Blog

Saturday, December 1, 2012

GE Lighting Illuminates Major Hotel Chain in Malaysia

GE Press Release:


GE Lighting Illuminates Major Hotel Chain in Malaysia

November 30, 2012
  • 2,876 light points across three Tune Hotels in Malaysia were retrofitted with energy-efficient lighting solutions
  • Tune Hotels will save an estimated 30-40 percent in energy and maintenance costs for a payback period of approximately 1.6 years
  • Tune Hotels’ energy savings reduces greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by an amount equivalent to planting 102.3 acres of new trees
BEIJING — Nov. 30, 2012 — (NYSE:GE) — GE Lighting and the Tune Hotels chain, headquartered in Malaysia, are jointly exploring and implementing energy-efficient solutions across Tune’s portfolio of hotels. GE will assist the business in reviewing, planning and designing properties currently under construction by contributing its knowledge and expertise in the areas of low-cost operational modeling, cost-saving infrastructure and energy-efficiency technology.
GE Lighting retrofitted 2,876 light points with energy-efficient LED lights across three Tune Hotels in Malaysia so far. With new lighting solutions—both exterior and interior—the three Tune Hotels stand out with high-quality illumination while enjoying energy savings and lower maintenance costs.
Tune Hotels is Asia’s leading “limited-service” hotel chain, providing value accommodations in 26 operational hotels across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and the United Kingdom, with an ambitious development pipeline in the works. GE’s collaboration with Tune Hotels is its first partnership with a major budget hotel chain in Asia and beyond.
“For Tune Hotels, it is very important for us to operate efficiently and the savings will directly benefit our customers. We needed a global partner that understands our needs and has the scale to support us in all the countries that we want to go into,” said Tune Hotels CEO, Mark Lankester. “In Malaysia, we aim to be the firstbranded budget hotel chain in Asia to be certified to the standards of the country’s Green Building Index,” he added.
Creating a “Home Away from Home” Ambience for the Hotel InteriorsThe GE team aimed to create a comfortable, welcoming interior that would encourage guests to relax and enjoy their stay at Tune Hotels.
For the three hotels, LEDs were installed in common areas, such as the lobby and corridors, as well as the bathrooms and guest rooms. The LEDs were used as the main ambient lighting and were able to achieve the luminance level required by the customer while providing greater energy savings and more uniform light distribution compared to the fluorescent lighting used previously.
Lighting for Distinctive Urban LandmarksEach Tune Hotel tends to be the distinctive landmark of the city that it is in. To add a brilliant glow to the exterior façade and signage, the GE team used the Tetra Signage system that utilizes high luminance, energy-efficient LEDs that offer a consistent color tone across the signage, enabling the true representation of the image of Tune Hotel. The high reliability of the Tetra Signage system also significantly reduces the maintenance cost of signage, which tends to be in hard-to-reach areas.
Reaping Returns and Reducing Environmental Impact“It is exciting to work with a client like Tune Hotels who shares our vision and commitment toward energy-efficient technology,” explained Country Manager of GE Lighting Malaysia, O Swee Aun. “While providing good, quality illumination to meet our clients’ needs, we also look forward to offering them greater savings while conserving natural resources used in energy production. Given GE’s global presence and the breadth and depth of our range of products and technical expertise, we are a premier one-stop lighting solutions provider for all types of environments,” he said.
With GE Lighting’s new lighting solutions, Tune Hotels will enjoy estimated savings of 30-40 percent in terms of energy and maintenance costs. This translates to a payback period of approximately 1.6 years. From an environmental perspective, the reduced energy consumption can eliminate 824,999 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per year, which is equivalent to planting 102.3 acres of new trees.
About Tune Hotels
Tune Hotels is part of the lifestyle business conglomerate Tune Group. Founded by Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and Dato’ Kamarudin Meranun in 2007, Tune Group aims to break down affordability barriers in various aspects of daily life via Tune Talk, Tune Money and Tune Hotels. Since Tune Hotels was first launched in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2007, over 4 million guests have stayed at its properties. The company now has 26 hotels across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and the United Kingdom. Visitwww.tunehotels.com for more information.
About GE Lighting
GE Lighting invents with the vigor of its founder Thomas Edison to develop energy-efficient solutions that change the way people light their world in commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. The business employs over 15,000 people in more than 100 countries, and sells products under the Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Evolve™, GTx™, Immersion™, Infusion™, Lumination™ and Tetra®commercial brands, all trademarks of GE. General Electric (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better. For more information, visit www.gelighting.com.

Contact Information

Name
David Schuellerman
Division
GE Consumer & Industrial
Phone
+1 216 266 9702
Mobile
+1 216 513 6236
Email
david.schuellerman@ge.com

Friday, November 30, 2012

Arrow Furniture Hits the Mark with Cost-Cutting In-Store LED Lamps from GE Lighting, Saving $23,000 Annually

GE Press Release:


Arrow Furniture Hits the Mark with Cost-Cutting In-Store LED Lamps from GE Lighting, Saving $23,000 Annually

November 29, 2012
EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — November 29, 2012— (NYSE:GE) — With four fine furniture stores in Toronto and more than 40 years of experience, family owned Arrow Furniture is dedicated to shopping the world over to bring customers the best traditional and contemporary furnishings. To ensure that dining room sets, area rugs, office décor and accents for every room in the house are beautifully but economically lit, the retailer recently selected energy-efficient LED lamps from GE Lighting to replace halogen bulbs in its stores. After all four installations are finished early next year, Arrow will stand to save $23,000 annually as the result of using 232,000 fewer kilowatt hours (kWhs) of electricity to illuminate its locations.
“We looked at different types of energy-saving lighting including LED options for about three years,” said Israel Adud, operations manager for Arrow Furniture. “Many products were offered to us by many vendors, but none of the bulbs were sufficient to light the merchandise on the floor.
“Of course it’s great to save money, but if I can’t sell furniture, I don’t care how much less I’m paying.”
Toronto-based distributor Mercor Lighting introduced Adud to new LED retail lighting from GE Lighting. GE’s energy smart® LED Retail PAR38 lamp consumes just 17 watts of electricity compared to the 90 watts used by Arrow Furniture’s old halogen bulbs. More important, the lamps’ light output, color consistency and uniformity met Adud’s exacting standards for in-store illumination.
“After looking into GE’s vast LED repertoire we found the new Retail PAR38 lamp best served the requirements set out by Arrow Furniture,” explained Eric Tordjman of Mercor Lighting. “When sampling product at the store level, the crisp, white light emphasized the true color of merchandise better than competing lamps our customer had previously evaluated.”
With assistance from Mercor, Arrow Furniture has already retrofit 345 GE ecomagination℠ LED PAR38 lamps at one of its Greater Toronto Area (GTA) stores. Installations at a second same-size location, as well as two larger stores housing 550 fixtures each, are to be completed by spring 2013.
“Mercor came to us with a great solution,” Adud said. “The overall response has been very positive. The new LED lighting gave our store a fresh look that we’re excited to continue with at our other locations.”
Arrow Furniture’s smaller stores will each reduce their annual electricity use by 44,746 kWhs thanks to the new lighting, a nearly $4,500 savings based on 12 hours of operation a day and $.10 kWh rate. The company’s larger stores, meanwhile, will save approximately 71,000 kWhs and $7,100 each after retrofitting of all in-store lamps.
Totaling its four GTA locations, Arrow Furniture’s switch to energy-efficient LED lighting soon will yield a $23,000 annual cost benefit.
Mercor Lighting also helped qualify Arrow Furniture to receive a $20 return from the Canadian Lighting Rebate Office for every LED lamp installed. As part of its turnkey solution, Mercor applies rebate incentive programs from all power utility service providers across Canada (http://www.bchydrorebates.com/ for information).
“Including combined utility savings and rebates, the cost of our complete lighting update will be recouped in about two years,” noted Adud. “To provide our customers with a brighter shopping experience while spending less is a win-win proposition, certainly.”
For more information about the GE Lighting products used in this project, visit www.gelighting.com. To learn more about GE’s commitment to innovative solutions to today’s environmental challenges while driving economic growth, visit www.ecomagination.com.
About Arrow FurnitureWith a strong family heritage of hard work and honest value, Arrow Furniture is dedicated to delivering the best to its customers. Since 1969, the company’s commitment has been to make each customer's home look its best and now, Arrow Furniture is proud to celebrate more than 40 years of serving the Greater Toronto Area. Visit www.arrowfurniture.com to learn more.
About Mercor LightingMercor Lighting's reputation for service and cost competitiveness has made it Canada's leading independent supplier of lighting. Mercor supplies a wide range of fixtures, consumables and lighting design services. Learn more about project management consulting, energy-saving retrofits and effective retail-store lighting atwww.mercor-lighting.com.
About GE Lighting
GE Lighting invents with the vigor of its founder Thomas Edison to develop energy-efficient solutions that change the way people light their world in commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. The business about 15,000 people in more than 100 countries, and sells products under the Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Evolve™, GTx™, Immersion™, Infusion™, Lumination™ and Tetra®commercial brands, all trademarks of GE. General Electric (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better. For more information, visit www.gelighting.com.
50 Years of LED Innovation
Oct. 9, 1962, GE scientist Dr. Nick Holonyak, Jr., invented the first practical visible-spectrum light-emitting diode (LED). In the 50 years since, GE has been on the forefront of LED innovation. The company has released inspired LED products for both residential and commercial settings, from the first ENERGY STAR®-qualified A19-shaped LED bulb to LED street lighting that illuminates cityscapes the world over.

GE’s Grid IQ™ ‘Solutions as a Service’ is Key Internet Technology Helping Utilities to Develop Modern Grid

GE Press Release:


GE’s Grid IQ™ ‘Solutions as a Service’ is Key Internet Technology Helping Utilities to Develop Modern Grid

November 29, 2012
  • Grid IQ™ “Solutions as a Service” to Create More Interconnected Businesses
  • Growing Use of Cloud-Based Computing Empowers Utilities to Modernize Infrastructure with Grid Data Management Tools
  • GE’s Subscription Service is Cost-Effective Option for Utilities to Modernize Grid Systems
ATLANTA — Nov. 29, 2012 — Highlighting the utility industry’s growing use of Internet-based data management tools to develop modern grid networks, GE (NYSE: GE) Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt today cited GE’s Grid IQ™ “Solutions as a Service” (SaaS) offering as one of nine industrial service technologies that are creating more modern, interconnected businesses in a 21st century economy, during an event held in San Francisco.

Grid IQ SaaS is a cloud-based grid management fee-for-service system aimed at meeting the operational technology needs of smaller and mid-market utilities that want to avoid the overhead expenses involved with developing their own smart grid management networks.

With the world’s electricity demand expected to increase by more than 70 percent by 2035, GE’s Grid IQ SaaS and other solutions are being deployed to help utilities around the world modernize their grid networks to more effectively meet their growing capacity, environmental and security needs.

In stressing the importance of Grid IQ SaaS as one of nine GE digital technologies that are helping to revolutionize vital industrial sectors, Immelt said, “The internet has changed the way we consume information and talk with each other, but now it can do more. By connecting intelligent machines to each other and ultimately to people and by combining software and big data analytics, we can push the boundaries of physical and material sciences to change the way the world works.”

Grid IQ SaaS allows utilities to monitor, manage and control their grid more intelligently. Using a cloud-computing services model, these capabilities can be deployed in 50 percent less time than traditional turnkey project models and 10 percent of the estimated implementation cost. This empowers utilities to embark upon grid modernization projects without worrying about the financial impact of ongoing IT operations.

Already, cities in Georgia are partnering with GE and utilities to utilize the Grid IQ SaaS tools to improve energy efficiency and to reduce cost.

“We are proud to offer this new service to our member communities as they pioneer the future of energy in Georgia. To offer the best service, we have teamed with GE — a trusted industry leader — to implement low-cost, effective solutions and to improve the use and delivery of energy to the cities’ customers,” said Keith Bass, CEO of Electric Cities of Georgia. “The City of Norcross is the first municipality in Georgia to take advantage of our Grid Modernization service, which provides a low-risk improvement of utility operations and ultimately benefits their customers.”

Grid modernization projects are capital intensive, but GE’s SaaS offering allows the utility to modernize its operations on an OPEX basis versus a CAPEX basis. This change can minimize the utilities’ initial project expenses, and smaller utilities and cooperatives supporting municipalities can expect benefits that could increase their net income. Grid IQ SaaS replaces the utilities’ IT infrastructure requirements with cloud-based computing and helps utilities manage risks associated with long-term technology investment decisions. SaaS transfers the investment need from the utility to GE by deploying a standard system.

“GE’s Grid IQ SaaS offers utilities a new method for monitoring, managing and controlling their grids more intelligently,” said Mike Carlson, general manager of smart grid solutions for GE’s Digital Energy business. “The menu of services available under our hosted SaaS server program offers utilities a cost-effective alternative for meeting their data management challenges.”

The SaaS technology combines the benefits of advanced metering infrastructure, outage management systems, interactive voice response, demand optimization systems and geospatial information systems into simple, hosted, subscription-based packages. Integrated services also offer utilities greater grid modernization capabilities by better managing electricity loads. Consumers benefit by engaging through a Web portal, allowing them to make smarter decisions and better manage their electricity, water and gas use.

GE’s Digital Energy business is a global leader in protection and control, communications, power sensing and power quality solutions. Its products and services increase the reliability of electrical power networks and critical equipment for utility, industrial and large commercial customers. From protecting and optimizing assets such as generators, transmission lines and motors, to ensuring secure wireless data transmission and providing uninterruptible power, GE’s Digital Energy business delivers industry-leading technologies to solve the unique challenges of each customer. For more information, visit http://www.gedigitalenergy.com.

About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For more information, visit the company's website at www.ge.com.

Follow GE Energy Management and the Digital Energy business on Twitter @GE_EnergyMgmt and@YourSmartGrid.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

54.5 MPG and Beyond: Fueling Energy-Efficient Vehicles


This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

November 28, 2012

54.5 MPG and Beyond: Fueling Energy-Efficient Vehicles

For many, refueling their vehicle can be disappointing. It's the only activity where consumers watch the cost add up, dollar by dollar, quickly eating up disposable income. And much of that money goes right out the tail pipe—only 14-26% of the energy from fuel is used to move a vehicle down the road.
Fortunately, the Obama Administration's new national fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles will improve vehicle efficiency and save Americans money at the pump, all while reducing our dependence on foreign oil and growing the U.S. economy.
Finalized in August, the new standards build on the Obama Administration's first set of fuel economy increases—the first increase since 1985—that raised the average fuel economy of passenger vehicles to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Under the new rules, cars and light-duty trucks built for model years 2017-2025 are expected to achieve industry-average fuel efficiency equivalents of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025—nearly double the efficiency of cars on the road today. For the complete story, see theEnergy Blog.

EV Charging Stations Take Off Across America


This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

November 28, 2012

EV Charging Stations Take Off Across America

Three years ago, the Energy Department announced an unprecedented series of Transportation Electrification projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since that time, we have seen an acceleration of the manufacturing and deployment of plug-in electric vehicles, batteries, and components in America. And because of advancements in technology and increased manufacturing, battery costs have shrunk by 50%. More recently, the Department launched the EV-Everywhere Grand Challenge, a national initiative to reduce the cost and increase the convenience of electric vehicles. Easy access to charging stations will be key to meeting these goals, and thanks to companies like ChargePoint, finding a charging station is getting more convenient than ever.
ChargePoint recently finished installing 4,600 U.S.-manufactured Level 2 charging stations in residential and commercial locations across the United States as part of its ChargePoint America Program, which was supported with a $15 million grant from the Energy Department and dollar-for-dollar matches by ChargePoint. Level 2 chargers typically add 10-20 miles to the range of the electric vehicle per hour of charging. The company also worked with vehicle manufacturers Chevrolet, Ford, BMW, and Nissan to provide home charging station hardware at no cost to their customers in exchange for collecting operational data from the charging station. For the complete story, see the Energy Blog.

Largest Texas Grid Operator Sets Wind Power Record


This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

November 28, 2012

Largest Texas Grid Operator Sets Wind Power Record

Wind  turbines in a grassy field.
The major Texas grid operator reported a record for wind energy generation this month.
Credit: Todd Spink
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state's largest grid operator, set a new state record for wind energy production on November 10. Wind power output reached 8,521 megawatts (MW), representing nearly 26% of system load at the time, surpassing the previous instantaneous record by more than 150 MW. ERCOT manages the flow of electric power to 23 million Texas customers, totaling 85% of the state's electric load.
Nearly 7,000 MW of the new record included wind power from West Texas wind farms, followed by more than 1,100 MW from wind farms along the Texas coast. ERCOT has more than 10,000 MW of wind power capacity, with nearly 21,000 MW of additional wind generation under review for development. The completion of high-voltage transmission projects by the end of 2013 will improve ERCOT's ability to move wind power from West Texas to the metropolitan areas, where demand on the grid is highest. See the ERCOT press release.

U.N. Report: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Gap Widening


This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

November 28, 2012

U.N. Report: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Gap Widening

Greenhouse gas emissions could rise to 58 gigatonnes (Gt) by 2020—far above the level that many scientists say is needed to keep the global temperature rise they predict to less than 2°C this century. A new study, The Emissions Gap Report 2012, says that if the world stays on a business-as-usual trajectory, more drastic and expensive cuts will be needed after 2020. The report, released on November 21, was coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Climate Foundation.
Previous scenario-based assessments have concluded that ambitious early action would keep the costs of meeting the two-degree target as low as possible. In such scenarios, emissions are projected to reach about 44 Gt or less in 2020 on average. However, emissions of warming gases like carbon dioxide are actually increasing each year worldwide. Total greenhouse gas emissions have risen from around 40 Gt in 2000 to an estimated 50.1 Gt in 2010. Delaying action also implies a greater risk of temperature rise exceeding two degrees, beyond which irreversible damage to the environment could occur, according to the report's authors.
The report noted that that bridging the emissions gap remains possible and efforts to do so should include increased energy efficiency in buildings, improved vehicle emissions standards, and continued growth of renewable energy. See the UNEP press release and the The Emissions Gap Report 2012 Web page.