Previously, I blogged about "Are We There Yet" with LED fixture economics. I think it's safe to say that it depends on the application. In the news today is Walmart, talking about their first 'All LED' retail store. (Link here) Interestingly, Wal-Mart was able to show 40% energy savings over alternate designs, and considering that Wal-Mart probably runs energy efficient lighting to begin with, we're starting to see significant LED headway in retail over _any_ alternative option.

I was speaking at a energy efficiency event yesterday hosted by Fountain Blue / Applied Materials (A Redwood smart lighting customer) where someone in the audience asked me: Is there any reason we should still be buying fluorescents at this point? Wow, how far, how fast we've come. For those that track lighting, LEDs have long "penciled" for certain applications - such as street lights, or signage, or increasingly, for downlights, spotlights, and mid-power lamps (Par38s).

 Found this good Bloombert article from the summertime on the rapid price reductions for LED lighting. In that article, a very bullish CEO of VantagePoint Partners, Alan Salzman (whose firm has 4 LED investments), was projecting that the present penny/lumen cost for LED chips could plummet by 10x by 2015.

I don't know where this ad will "play" but I thought it was executed really well. I also liked that the "lightbulb" symbol used at the end rotating between both CFL and LED bulb options. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HaPiyI_o2U&feature=player_embedded