What are LED Bulbs? And where did the incandescent bulbs go?

LEDs bulbs contain multiple Light Emitting Diodes. These diodes emit photons…the same light as the sun. With falling prices, they are taking over the marketplace as the go-to bulb, and for good reason. LED bulbs turn on instantly, use less energy, last longer, need not time to warm up, perform better in cold temperatures, can handle jarring and bumping, and are smaller than anything else readily available on the market.

Let’s compare LEDs to incandescent bulbs. Incandescent light bulbs work by heating a filament to a very high temperature so that it glows. A typical 60 watt incandescent bulb uses 60 watts to produce 800 lumens , last about 1,000 hours and wastes 98% of their energy as heat.

A typical LED bulb uses 10 watts to produce 800 lumens, lasts 50,000 hours and wastes 4% of their energy as heat.

Incandescent bulbs have a reputation for emitting a “warm” light. I had a hard time getting my family to replace them for this reason. LED’s, however, come in every imaginable color spectrum, sometimes in the same bulb. For my birthday, I received a Philips Hue LED kit, which allows me to control the light, intensity and frequency of the LED bulbs via my smartphone. The colors pulse and change when I play music, when the phone rings, when someone enters the room via a motion sensor, etc. This is one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.

So, what is the fate of incandescent bulbs? A national ban on incandescent bulbs went into affect in January of this year. You may not have noticed. It turns out that most people have already made the switch to LEDs, or at least CFLs (which has acted as a bridging technology). Like Seattle’s ban on plastic bags, this is just a logical progression towards better design brought about by smart policy. By “better” I mean more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable design.

Electric Vehicles (EV) and Solar

Cars and trucks consume a lot of energy. 29% of the Washington State’s total energy consumption, to be exact. The majority of this energy is from fossil fuels, the burning of which is causing increasing climate instability. Artisan’s raison d'être is help fight climate change by competing agains fossil fuels. Hence, we want to solarize your transportation, not just your home.

Unlike coal and nuclear-rich areas of our country, Electric vehicles are a no-brainer for Puget Sound residents. We have the cheapest power in the country because 62% of it comes from hydro-power. 7% is coming from other renewables, mainly wind. Hydro has it’s own environmental problems, to be sure, but it’s much better than the alternatives making up the rest of our energy mix: coal, oil, gas, and nuclear.  

We can already save big $ every week by simply not going to the gas station and instead having a slightly higher electric bill. The average EV uses 3,000kWh/year. That’s roughly $300/year in electricity for us. The average gas-powered car in Washington uses $3,000/year in gas. So, we pay 10X more for the privilege of supporting some of the worst companies on the planet and contributing to what we all want to prevent.

Now, add solar. You replace the utility’s fuel mix with 100% renewable energy. You replace utility rate increases with 100% stable power rates. That 3,000kWh/year electric usage could be supplied by a 3kW solar system, taking up 200 square feet. This will cost anywhere between $12-15K, before rebates and will give you 40 plus years of power. So, permanent renewable fuel on your roof, powering your plugged-in car a few feet away. If you factor in the amount of money you are saving at the pump as well as all the rebates and incentives for solar, your return on investment (ROI) goes to under 5 years. WOW.

Not only does Artisan prewire for and install EV charging stations, we are now proud EV owners. We introduced two new Nissan Leaf EVs to our fleet this year. Several of us also have EVs at home. We are working with our building owner to install solar this year to close the loop. It’s a humble beginning, but our company’s goal is to have 100% fossil fuel free transportation by 2020.

A recent Nissan Leaf commercial I heard stated: “the question is no longer ‘why electric?’ It’s ‘why gas?’” This question would not have made much since until a few years ago. While we can’t erase the path that the world has taken for over 100 years towards more and more internal combustion engines (although it’s fun to imagine the “what if”), we have choices now and can start asking “why.” A colleague of ours, Jeremy Smithson, had a shirt on the other day saying, “Gas is so Embarrassing. ” That’s how I feel every morning when our fleet of diesel vans, advertising us a renewable energy company, leaves the parking lot. Thankfully, the solution is here.

The Last Twelve Months 

The sun has returned to Seattle. The days are getting longer, and inevitably people are starting to think about solar energy again. As the solar industry heads back into the busy “solar season” for sales and installations, and the events and campaigns start to blur again, I'd like to take a moment to pause and look back at what’s happened to us and solar in Washington over the last twelve months. 

Solar is the fastest-growing renewable energy in America. In 2013, solar grew in Washington alone by about 30%, which has been our consistent rate of growth for several years now. Solar grew by more than 40% overall in the U.S., and more solar was installed in the U.S. in the last 18 months than the previous 30 years combined. WOW! As for Artisan, we grew by 260% in people and revenue, going form 12 to 32 employees as of April. We reached the 1MW installed solar milestone in September, 2013 - a goal that is a major accomplishment for a small, mostly-residential solar installer. It took us 6 years to hit that number, but it's only going to take 12 months to hit the 2MW milestone, which we will cross by the end of this summer. So, things are accelerating. We are currently expanding our offices, personnel and service vehicle fleet to keep up.

Our location and management has changed as well. In June of last year, Artisan made the big leap off of Vashon Island to our new home in Seattle’s historic neighborhood of Georgetown. We are more centrally located for our customers and suppliers, which helps us to keep our costs down and return those savings to the consumer. Also in June, Evan and Jason became co-owners of Artisan Electric. They are working beautifully as a team with Evan overseeing the beginning process of projects at the sales and design level, and Jason overseeing buildout, customer exit interviews and annual checkups. Finally, in February of this year, we re-opened an Artisan branch on Vashon and were fortunate enough to hire Thomas Vroom, one of the best electricians and solar installers in Washington State. The majority of Artisan management lives on Vashon, so it feels good to be concentrating on the island again.

Artisan is currently wrapping up the second of two back-to-back Solarize Seattle campaigns with NW SEED and Puget Sound Solar. The campaigns resulted in an incredible 323 contracted solar projects for Seattle over the last 12 months! That’s over 50% of ALL solar PV systems installed in the city during 2013.  NW SEED is at it again this year, and will be launching several new solarize campaigns soon.

Thank you to everyone who has gone solar and supports our work, we are extremely grateful. And we thank you for spreading the word as well; we are starting to see more and more customer referrals coming through our website, which speaks to our vision for Artisan more than anything else. Here’s to Washington State and the solar installer community setting more records over the next 12 months! We’ll keep everyone updated.