This Year‘s National Christmas Tree to be the “Brightest” Yet
LED Technology Leads GE to create the Most Energy Efficient National Christmas Tree in history
CLEVELAND, OH, December 2, 2009 — This year, GE has created America‘s first National Christmas tree outfitted from top to bottom with energy saving LED technology, including many light strings and ornaments used on previous year‘s trees. Inspired by the efforts of American families to “reduce, reuse and recycle,“ the tree is the most energy efficient tree in our history—consuming only 6000 watts of energy, compared to 18,000 watts on last year‘s tree and an average of 40,000 watts on National Trees in the traditional, all–incandescent light era.
The wattage reduction was possible because GE has, for the last three years, been gradually trimming the tree with more LED (light emitting diode) lighting, which is powered by tiny computer chips and has up to twenty times the life of traditional incandescent lighting. Since they last so much longer, the company was able to reuse more than half the LED light strings from previous year‘s trees. They also retrofitted ornaments from previous years with new LED light strands.
“Recycling and reusing LED lights and ornaments from past designs was the smart thing to do, particularly in today‘s economy in which Americans across our nation are becoming more energy conscious,” said Mary Beth Gotti, manager of the GE Lighting & Electrical Institute. “The brightness and variety of the LEDs has improved so much that for the first time, we‘re able to incorporate them so broadly in the design.”
A Star–Studded Holiday
Although this year‘s tree design will use considerably less energy, it will shine brightly with more lights than ever before. It will feature 750 Energy Star–rated strings of white LED lights, half that are C5 LED lights recycled from last year and half that are LED crystal minis – a new product that will help give the lighting a three-dimensional look. Each string of LED lights only costs about 14 cents to run for the entire holiday season. The heirloom topper – a 42–inch star illuminated with industrial grade white GE Tetra® LEDs – that has graced the National Christmas Tree for the past three years, will again make an appearance.
The ornaments all come from the tree‘s recent history: 42 gold 12–inch stars from 2008; 42 white 15–inch and 20–inch stars from 2004; and 54 red and gold 18–inch, 2–inch and 30–inch starbursts from 1998.
To add more visual interest, the 56 state and territory trees will be adorned with a combination of C5 LED lights from last year and new LED pearl lights. While GE provides the background lights, teams from each state provide ornaments for the state trees.
Survey Shows Consumers Want Energy Savings
If a recent study commissioned by GE and conducted by Goodmind Market Research is any indication, this year consumers will be decorating with LEDs in growing numbers. When asked if they planned to save energy this season, 56%said yes, while 24% planned on decorating with LED lights.
In the process of doing the research, some other fun facts emerged. Consumers in the west were more likely to decorate with LED lights (31%) than the northeast (23%) or south (21%). Females prefer white lights over multi–colored. People in the northeast are most likely to decorate with white lights and use real trees, while people in the midwest and south were most likely to use multi–colored lights and artificial trees.
LEDs offer consumers lots of benefits such as Energy Smart® ConstantON™ LED lights that stay lit when a bulb is broken, to five–year limited warranties, and a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors to choose from.
“LEDs are quickly becoming the people‘s choice, and for good reason. They‘re more durable, and reduce energy usage by about 80% over traditional incandescent bulbs. The energy–efficient lighting on the National Christmas Tree is symbolic of what‘s going on in homes across the nation,” Gotti said.
GE has been designing the National Christmas Tree since 1962, producing and donating the lighting and decorations. The lighting of the National Christmas Tree is an unbroken tradition that began in 1923 when Calvin Coolidge lit the first tree on the Ellipse.
GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliances, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and ecomaginationSM, a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE: GE), imagination at work, sells products under the Monogram®, Profile™, GE®, Hotpoint®, Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Entellisys®, Tetra®, Vio™ and Immersion® commercial brands. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.
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