12/13/2007 - Farmington Hills-based Lumecon LLC said Wednesday that it had won a contract with the city of Ann Arbor to supply more than 1,000 LED retrofits in the city's move to 100 percent LED street lighting downtown.

Lumecon was founded earlier this year as the sales and marketing arm of Relume Technologies Inc., which was founded in 1994 as an LED research and development company.

The Relume LED retrofit system is based on XLamp LEDs from Durham, N.C.-based Cree Inc.

The city's contract was awarded after a 25-fixture evaluation installation showed a 50 percent energy savings and a 3.8-year payback on the initial purchase and installation price of the new lamps.

Mike Bergren, the city of Ann Arbor's assistant field operations manager, said the city has been working with Lumecon and Relume for two years to perfect the retrofit. He said each LED fixture draws only 56 watts and is projected to last 10 years. They will replace bulbs that use more than 120 watts and last two years.

Full implementation of LEDs is projected to cut Ann Arbor's public lighting energy use in half and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2,425 tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of taking 400 cars off the road for a year. Detroit Edison, Ann Arbor's utility provider, will meter the new LED streetlights with the intent to gather sufficient information to develop new LED-based tariffs.

For more information on Relume LED light engines and fixtures, please call distributor Lumecon at (877) 564-3133 or visit www.lumecon.com.