Port Hueneme Mayor Douglas Breeze has two priorities: keeping the city solvent and ensuring city employees are given the tools to perform their jobs.
Breeze was elected in 2008 to the Port Hueneme City Council after retiring from a 30-year career as a public employee, with his last position as public works director for Ojai. He was elected Port Hueneme mayor this month by fellow council members.
"After I retired and I was at home under my wife's feet for a few months, my wife looked at me and said, 'You need to find something to do,' " Breeze said. "I love Port Hueneme so much and it happened to be election time, so I filled out the paperwork and won the election."
Breeze was raised in Garden Grove and joined the Navy when he was 17. He served in Vietnam, among his many duties, according to his online biography. From 1981 to 1992, Breeze served in management positions at the Delta Diablo Sanitation District in Northern California and at Chino Basin Municipal Water District in Southern California.
In 1993, Breeze turned down a position with the San Diego Port District to become public works director for Port Hueneme, one of the county's smallest cities, with a population of 21,700, according to the 2010 census.
"Most people who come to Port Hueneme never leave," he said. "It's a beautiful city by the beach with a hometown atmosphere. The citizens watch out for each other. There is an outstanding police department. I can't thank those people enough for what they do."
While serving as the city's public works director, Breeze helped establish the Port Hueneme Water Agency and managed construction of the water treatment facility and distribution system. He left the city in 2003 to work for Ojai, where he remained until he retired in 2007.
"Being mayor was not my goal. My goal is to make sure the city is fiscally solvent and employees have what they need," Breeze said. "I'm more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy, getting the work done. The change for me right now is I can't be hands-on. I can't get things done. I'm overseeing the city from a different position that fits in with retirement."
In his short time as mayor, Breeze already has faced a bit of controversy over the issue of separation of church and state. The City Council in recent meetings has approved displaying "In God We Trust" over council members' photos at City Hall and having the city host a menorah and Christmas tree lighting.
Councilman Ellis Green opposed both actions, saying he has problems with the council getting involved with promoting any religious agenda.
But Breeze says the two issues are not indications that the council is seeking a more religious direction.
"It's not a change in Hueneme. For years and years, we had a National Day of Prayer in City Hall and we opened meetings with a prayer," he said. "It's only in the last few years that the so-called political correctness has come in, calling it 'inspiration' instead of 'prayer.' I think some people are taking separation of church and state too far. The Constitution provides that the government shall not establish a religion. It doesn't say people can't portray their religious beliefs."
Showing posts with label LED light bulbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LED light bulbs. Show all posts
Monday, 26 December 2011
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Standards and regulations
Back in the commercial world, a lack of standards is presenting another obstacle to the widespread adoption of LED technology.
For Douglas Bryan, CEO of Lighting Council Australia, the many LED products flooding a lightly-regulated market is a cause for concern.
"There are some very good products available, but there are lots of products that fail to meet the claims of suppliers in terms of longevity and other aspects of performance like colour characteristics and efficacy," Bryan told Electronics News. "Quality issues on the market are undermining consumer confidence in the product to justify the major outlay for LEDs."
As the first step toward improving consumer confidence in LED lights, Lighting Council Australia introduced a labelling-based quality program called the Solid State Lighting (SSL) quality scheme.
A voluntary industry scheme, it relies on third-party test reports of the products provided by the supplier for critical parameters like luminaire efficacy, light output, measured input power, correlated colour temperature and the colour rendering index.
Once verified and paid for, a label is issued for use on the product and in product literature for a period of three years.
The scheme, being entirely voluntary, is far from being a standard or regulation, and presents little, if any obstacle to rogue importers. According to Bryan, Australian regulators are awaiting the introduction of international standards and the outcome of more testing around the world.
As with other products, the US, Europe and Asia are expected to have different standards and regulations. Currently, the most advanced is the U.S. Department of Energy's Solid State Lighting Energy Star standard.
The U.S. standard is based around the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) LM-79 "Electrical and Photometric Measurements of Solid-State Lighting Products" and LM-80 "Measuring Lumen Maintenance of LED Light Sources" test methods.
Together, these two methods cover the luminaire and the LED package, arrays and modules, and LM-80 in particular is rigorous enough to eliminate most of the unsubstantiated claims made about LED lifetime.
It is hard to imagine what Thomas Edison and the other scientists behind the incandescent light bulb would have thought of today's world, as their invention is superceded by ever more efficient technologies in quick succession.
But perhaps Edison, that consummate capitalist, would recognise the immense potential surrounding LEDs – the opportunity for brighter and near-ubiquitous lighting, without the heavy environmental cost; the opportunity for Australia to play a bigger part in the global electronics supply chain, and for quality electronics designers to make big profits from their expertise and hard work.
However, even as consumers and manufacturers around the world start to take notice of LEDs, there are threats to the widespread adoption of the technology. Already, many early adopters, stung by the flood of inferior products, perceive LEDs as being overpriced and of variable quality.
For Douglas Bryan, CEO of Lighting Council Australia, the many LED products flooding a lightly-regulated market is a cause for concern.
"There are some very good products available, but there are lots of products that fail to meet the claims of suppliers in terms of longevity and other aspects of performance like colour characteristics and efficacy," Bryan told Electronics News. "Quality issues on the market are undermining consumer confidence in the product to justify the major outlay for LEDs."
As the first step toward improving consumer confidence in LED lights, Lighting Council Australia introduced a labelling-based quality program called the Solid State Lighting (SSL) quality scheme.
A voluntary industry scheme, it relies on third-party test reports of the products provided by the supplier for critical parameters like luminaire efficacy, light output, measured input power, correlated colour temperature and the colour rendering index.
Once verified and paid for, a label is issued for use on the product and in product literature for a period of three years.
The scheme, being entirely voluntary, is far from being a standard or regulation, and presents little, if any obstacle to rogue importers. According to Bryan, Australian regulators are awaiting the introduction of international standards and the outcome of more testing around the world.
As with other products, the US, Europe and Asia are expected to have different standards and regulations. Currently, the most advanced is the U.S. Department of Energy's Solid State Lighting Energy Star standard.
The U.S. standard is based around the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) LM-79 "Electrical and Photometric Measurements of Solid-State Lighting Products" and LM-80 "Measuring Lumen Maintenance of LED Light Sources" test methods.
Together, these two methods cover the luminaire and the LED package, arrays and modules, and LM-80 in particular is rigorous enough to eliminate most of the unsubstantiated claims made about LED lifetime.
It is hard to imagine what Thomas Edison and the other scientists behind the incandescent light bulb would have thought of today's world, as their invention is superceded by ever more efficient technologies in quick succession.
But perhaps Edison, that consummate capitalist, would recognise the immense potential surrounding LEDs – the opportunity for brighter and near-ubiquitous lighting, without the heavy environmental cost; the opportunity for Australia to play a bigger part in the global electronics supply chain, and for quality electronics designers to make big profits from their expertise and hard work.
However, even as consumers and manufacturers around the world start to take notice of LEDs, there are threats to the widespread adoption of the technology. Already, many early adopters, stung by the flood of inferior products, perceive LEDs as being overpriced and of variable quality.
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
LED light bulb price dipped 10% in October
According to the price survey conducted by LEDinside, the LED light bulb prices for 60W incandescent light bulb replacement underwent a drastic drop of 9% in October; the price dropped by 10% in America and hit a low of USD 24.97, with the average selling price (ASP) declining to USD 38.6. The LED light bulb prices for 40W incandescent light bulb replacement were relatively stable.
LED light bulb for 60W replacement saw considerable price drop
LEDinside indicates that in October, LED light bulb prices the United States took the most drastic dip: the prices of LED light bulbs for 40W and 60W replacements dropped 3% and 10%, respectively. At present, the ASP of 60W replacement products dropped to USD 31.3 with the lowest price hitting USD 24.97, a much more consumer-friendly price compared to those of other regions. The prominent price downtrend attributed to the price cutting strategy of Philips, which triggered other brand vendors to lower their prices and in turn caused the prices to drop vastly.
Prices of brand-name LED light bulbs for 40W replacement plunged to USD 11.6
As for 40W incandescent replacement products, the ASP in October remained stable compared with September. Even though the prices in most areas experienced a drop of roughly 3%, the ASP rise in Europe canceled out the overall decline, resulting in the October ASP remained the same as September.
Interestingly, the prices of 40W incandescent replacement products in South Korea remained relatively low. Due to the continuous price cutting of brand vendors, the lowest price hit USD 11.6, approaching the sweet spot of USD 10 which LEDinside previously predicted.
Perspectives
According to LEDinside, due to the persisting price downturn, the ASP of LED light bulbs fell below USD 48 /Klm, getting closer to the expectations of the consumers. As for the market trend, the market acceptance of LED lights has been increasing.
Therefore, several countries are planning to enact subsidy policies to increase the penetration rate of LED light bulbs. Chinese government has imposed the ban against incandescent lights, and is expected to announce the subsidy policies for LED light bulbs at the end of 2011. As for Taiwan, the subsidy policy is still in discussion, which should be finalized as soon as possible in order to catch up with the global trend.
In the Canadian province of New Brunswick, NB power maintains 13,500 street lights including 13,500 in the city of Moncton and the city and utility are testing LED street lights according to the Times & Transcript. Moreover, the experience is illustrative of the dilemma that street-light owners face when considering a transition to LEDs.
The city has documented savings as high as 45%. That may are may not justify the cost of LED lights which the city has projected at 5 times more than legacy lights. But the city and utility have other concerns that center around the fact that there are so many different companies building LED street lights and each is a proprietary design. In contrast, their legacy high-pressure-sodium lights all use the same lamps regardless of the fixture manufacturer. And the city has considered moving to LEDs on a fixture-by-fixture basis as existing lamps burn out, but is reluctant to do so because of the vast difference in color temperature.
LED light bulb for 60W replacement saw considerable price drop
LEDinside indicates that in October, LED light bulb prices the United States took the most drastic dip: the prices of LED light bulbs for 40W and 60W replacements dropped 3% and 10%, respectively. At present, the ASP of 60W replacement products dropped to USD 31.3 with the lowest price hitting USD 24.97, a much more consumer-friendly price compared to those of other regions. The prominent price downtrend attributed to the price cutting strategy of Philips, which triggered other brand vendors to lower their prices and in turn caused the prices to drop vastly.
Prices of brand-name LED light bulbs for 40W replacement plunged to USD 11.6
As for 40W incandescent replacement products, the ASP in October remained stable compared with September. Even though the prices in most areas experienced a drop of roughly 3%, the ASP rise in Europe canceled out the overall decline, resulting in the October ASP remained the same as September.
Interestingly, the prices of 40W incandescent replacement products in South Korea remained relatively low. Due to the continuous price cutting of brand vendors, the lowest price hit USD 11.6, approaching the sweet spot of USD 10 which LEDinside previously predicted.
Perspectives
According to LEDinside, due to the persisting price downturn, the ASP of LED light bulbs fell below USD 48 /Klm, getting closer to the expectations of the consumers. As for the market trend, the market acceptance of LED lights has been increasing.
Therefore, several countries are planning to enact subsidy policies to increase the penetration rate of LED light bulbs. Chinese government has imposed the ban against incandescent lights, and is expected to announce the subsidy policies for LED light bulbs at the end of 2011. As for Taiwan, the subsidy policy is still in discussion, which should be finalized as soon as possible in order to catch up with the global trend.
In the Canadian province of New Brunswick, NB power maintains 13,500 street lights including 13,500 in the city of Moncton and the city and utility are testing LED street lights according to the Times & Transcript. Moreover, the experience is illustrative of the dilemma that street-light owners face when considering a transition to LEDs.
The city has documented savings as high as 45%. That may are may not justify the cost of LED lights which the city has projected at 5 times more than legacy lights. But the city and utility have other concerns that center around the fact that there are so many different companies building LED street lights and each is a proprietary design. In contrast, their legacy high-pressure-sodium lights all use the same lamps regardless of the fixture manufacturer. And the city has considered moving to LEDs on a fixture-by-fixture basis as existing lamps burn out, but is reluctant to do so because of the vast difference in color temperature.
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