Lights of the Ozarks switch to energy-efficient bulbs

Kaitlyn Rush

Issue date: 12/8/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Veronica Pucci

Two-hundred LED light strands were added to the Lights of the Ozarks display this year as a part of a four-year plan to replace every strand with LED lights.

The Lights of the Ozarks is more than halfway through the gradual four-year transition from using incandescent light bulbs to LED light bulbs at the annual Light the Night lighting of the Fayetteville Square last month.

This year, 60 percent of the lights on the square are light-emitting diode, or LED, lights. Fayetteville Parks and Recreation workers installed 2,000 new LED bulbs in October to prepare for the annual Light the Night Nov. 22.

City officials bought 200 LED strands this year, each strand having 100 LED bulbs. Two-thirds of the square already has been converted to LED lighting, and city officials intend for the conversion to be completed by 2010.

Josh Bowen, park maintenance supervisor, said that LED bulbs use 88 percent less energy than the traditional incandescent bulbs and are 80 percent more efficient than the incandescent bulbs.

"There are less installation problems with power distribution and fewer problems with LED bulbs because they are plastic, whereas incandescent bulbs are glass," he said. "High winds mean bulbs break in the treetops; incandescent bulbs are more susceptible to vandalism, as well, because they break easier. For someone to vandalize the LED bulbs, they would have to go around cutting wires. Not to mention LED bulbs can't be pulled out like the old bulbs."

Fayetteville Parks and Recreation workers spent more than 3,000 hours decorating the wquare with 400,000 lights this year.

"That's 34 miles of lights. Connected end-to-end, it would reach Bella Vista," Bowen said.

Bowen said last year the Lights of the Ozarks had installed some LEDs - about 2,000 strands. Between this year and last, 8,000 strands will be needed to complete the transition from partial incandescent to total LED lighting.

However, a strand of incandescent bulbs will last one year, or a maximum of two years.

"We have to replace the regular bulbs every one to two years because they go out or break," Bowen said. "The LED bulbs have a bulb life of 50,000 hours. That equals 148 years of Lights of the Ozarks for the LEDs versus two years for the incandescent bulbs. We are saving so much by paying more on the front end.

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