In the case of Boston's Logan Airport, with 30 year old lighting ("before" picture at left) in the Terminal B parking facility, a lighting upgrade revamp was going to happen either way. Dan Hallahan is the LEED accredited engineer with engineering firm Fay, Spofford and Thorndike. Dan was responsible for the overall lighting design, product recommendations and on-site evaluations for the project, including a pilot installation to compare several different manufacturers LED fixtures. This was their firm's first LED lighting implementation, and they were pleasantly surprised by the smoothness of the process, and the quality of the result. "The main considerations included the payback period and efficiency. So prior to selecting the source, we reviewed options to reduce the lighting when it's not necessary. The options include using natural daylight along the parameter of the garage and using occupancy sensors to control the lighting. We designed an occupancy sensor network in the garage to switch large sections of lighting at a time rather than individual lights. If occupancy is detected within 80' of a neighboring section, that triggers the neighboring section to power 'on' allowing drivers ample time to react. With the LED solution, we were able to completely turn off all non-emergency lighting when the lighting isn't needed. We couldn't do that with metal-halide because they require a long warm up period," commented Dan.

The fact that the Terminal B facility needed the update was key to solid state lighting being able to take the win ("after" picture at left). Essentially, Massport was able to consider the acquisition-cost uplift as a delta, compared to the energy savings that would result. The payback was less than 5 years, which Hallahan considered "a slam dunk" in terms of acceptable business cases. Makes sense, considering the last installation had a 30 year life span, so they didn't need to see 1-2 years to visualize the advantage. With about 8800 hours in a year, 5 years represents about 44000 hours, which would be well within the product lifetime, given the dimming strategy that the design employs.

Interestingly, when I asked about the other main parking structure at Logan, while there could be an energy saving opportunity, the lighting installed there was "only" 10 years old, is running pretty efficiently, and wasn't likely to be replaced anytime soon. Make no mistake in assuming the incumbents are going to be easily knocked aside. LED lighting can bring a lot to the table, but it faces more than just simply economic decision criteria.. Even when the payback might be clear, whether it is 2, 5 or 10 years, a lighting retrofit is a big task, takes a lot of resources, and is a distraction to the day-to-day business that goes on in a facility. Plus it takes money. Lots of it, and whether it is accomplished with good quality metal halide fixtures (at $300+ a crack) or LED luminaires (not bad, but still more than that), it's not complicated math to figure out that anything over a few thousand fixtures makes it over a million dollar deal. That's not money that's spent lightly, and if it's not handy, it won't be spent at all, regardless of the payback. Municipalities and port authorities are running on tight budgets, and if the capital appropriations aren't there, they have to pursue a nontrivial approval process which may include submitting a bond issue to the voters. But if you need to replace the installation anyway, the delta in those capital budgets becomes substantially lower, and the door opens much wider to the LED lighting alternatives.

Why are we seeing this high-profile upswing? In a word, it's belief, according to BetaLED East Coast Regional Sales Manager, Michael Winegard. Michael oversaw the Terminal B win in Boston, and has reportedly just gotten the nod to equip Logan's new economy parking structure as well as an existing parking structure at Portland Maine's airport. He tells us it's a very different world from two years ago. As the ground was being plowed "back then", it really was a process of enticing the potential users to simply open their minds to the possibility that these new LED lights could be a good idea. While the semiconductor industry had its own track record, LEDs were generally considered to simply not be ready to produce the amount, quality and reliability of light that the incumbents had been delivering for decades. But the industry did well to promote installations and learn from their missteps, and a positive track record began to emerge. "Now, the industry has high profile installations and large scale wins that it can point to, including the I-35 bridge in Minnesota, the city of Anchorage, Alaska and very notably, the City of Los Angeles that is moving ahead with its wide-scale streetlight retrofit plans. Municipalities and facility managers are willing to listen to the full business case simply because there is enough success that indicates the technology works and can be relied on."

So progress continues and airports are on the radar scope. With 3000 or so publicly operated airports, as we move from the parking structures to the ramps, taxiways, runways and eventually on inside the buildings, there is still a bit of room in the opportunity...