While the team at GE Global Research was hard at work building Santa’s high-tech sleigh of the future, the folks in GE’s lighting business have been busy stringing up holiday cheer from Paris to Washington. On the famous Champs Elysees this year, “a glittering forest of fuchsia” lights adorn more than 400 trees for two kilometers — and an additional 120 trees are decorated with 30,000 flashing lights to represent the “light from falling stars”. Meanwhile, across the ocean in Washington, D.C., GE’s design of the 2009 National Christmas Tree this year has made it the most energy efficient in history — with LEDs using about 6,000 watts compared to last year’s 18,000 watts.
City of lights: GE Lighting has been a partner of the annual Champs Elysees event since 2002. The number of pedestrians visiting the famous avenue is expected to rise from an average of 300,000 to 500,000 every day reaching more than a million on Dec. 31. Celebrities including Liza Minelli, Johnny Halliday, Monica Belluci, Vanessa Paradis and Marion Cotillard, attended the illumination ceremony.
Back in Washington, the U.S. National Park Foundation says that this year’s energy efficiency goal sprang from the idea: “If households across the nation are working to ‘reuse and recycle’ and reduce energy consumption, why shouldn’t the National Christmas Tree do it, too?… For the last three years, GE has been gradually trimming the tree with more LED (light emitting diode) lighting, which is powered by tiny computer chips, and has about ten times the life of traditional incandescent lighting. This year, the ornaments will also be retrofitted with LED bulbs to achieve the significant additional wattage reduction.”
National treasure: GE has been designing the National Christmas Tree since 1962, producing and donating the lighting and decorations.
Also in the lighting hit parade this year is the annual extravaganza at GE Lighting’s historic Nela Park in Cleveland, Ohio — which has been a local tradition since 1925. Inspired by today’s popular dance shows, GE has dubbed this year’s display “Dancing Through the Holiday Season,” featuring more than a quarter million lights and dance-themed displays.
Light on their feet: “If you’ve ever been to one of GE’s holiday displays, you know that lights have a unique way of dancing,” said Debbie George, a design consultant for GE who created this year’s display. “The various holiday vignettes capture movement and beauty with displays that twinkle, flash, stream and dance. It’s a great way to show the excitement of the season.”
Ho, ho, ho! In the process of doing some research on consumers and LED lights, GE’s survey turned up some fun holiday insights. Consumers in the West were more likely to decorate with LED lights (31 percent) than the Northeast (23 percent) or South (21 percent). Females prefer white lights over multi-colored. People in the Northeast are most likely to decorate with white lights and use real trees, while people in the Midwest and South were most likely to use multi-colored lights and artificial trees.
* Learn more about the Paris lights
* Learn more about this year’s National Christmas Tree
* Learn more about GE’s LED systems
We’ll see you again on December 28th. Happy holidays from everyone here at GE Reports!
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Is the NELA Park display done in LED lights as well? If not, why not? How many KWH are consumed for this NELA park display?
When I visited the display, an East Cleveland policeman in a car was stationed across Noble Road from the park. Does GE pay East Cleveland for this watchman?
The display is lovely, but it would be interesting to know how much coal was burned to offer it to the community.
I would like some further information on your 8mm Clear Icicle Christmas Lights. How do they compare with your “Constant On Icicle Lights” ?
thanks, Joyce Cheney
see note above
ge camera A730 was not good! When I buy it, the product was easily damage!!!!! I get mad about it!!!!….
Dear Susan – thank for your comments about the holiday lighting display at GE’s Nela Park. It’s a tradition we are all very proud of. Please see the answers to your questions below.
- We used both incandescent and LED lighting in this year’s display. We tried to reuse lights from previous years, where possible, in keeping with the recycling theme of this year’s National Christmas Tree.
- The lighting display was lit for 17 hours a day for about 30 days for a total of 71,400 kwh.
- Approximately 51,408 pounds of coal were burned during the lighting display.
Thanks again for your interest.
Thanks you, Ms. Robinson.
I look forward to the day when the NELA display of all LED or even more efficient lighting is powered by intermittent energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal) supplied through smart grid technologies from the surrounding buildings. But for now, I’ll leave that to GE’s ecoimagination.
Happy New Year!
Hello! I’m a brasilian. We work witch special events in my coutry and i will like to know the process of GE made the falling star in Paris, because i will use in Brasilian christmas 2010, in Rio de Janeiro.
I will like to talk and to by “falling stars”.
Thanks.
I love GE. tchau!!!!
I don’t really care for the color temperature of the LED lights. They are too harsh. It makes a tree look more like a space ship landed that a traditional Christmas tree. The ceramic colors used on the C7 and C9 Christmas lights by GE in the late 50′s through the mid 70′s were the best. If you could reproduce those colors with LED you would have a winner.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffcarter629/4445170216/in/set-72157623524611033/
Sorry everyone but Im a fan of the C7 twinkling florescent bulbs still of the 50′s through the 70′s.
I was lucky enough to find some still in the stores last year but I think I bought them all up lol. It’s pretty cool to sit back and not to have any lights on in the living room except for the lights on the tree to light the room and not to mention the scenery on the ceiling that has amazed me since I was a kid…. Im going to miss these lights when once they all burn out but until that day, I’ll keep searching for replacement bulbs so my grandchildren can also have the same memories of what Christmas lights can bring to oneself…. Amazing isn’t it, beautiful Christmas lights have made so many good memories 
Now, back to my search 
GE C7 Replacement Twinkle Florescent bulbs
I agree with Jeff and Bev. Don’t get me wrong, the LED lights are magnicificient! But there is something ab out a peaceful blur of soft lights when you’ve hit the end of a long day. Ahhhh…..
I am looking for GE String Along 100 Count C5 Sparkling Faceted Bulbs. I have one package but need 8-10 more. These have beautiful purple, yellow, blue, red, green and soft orange colored bulbs.
I purchased several sets of the GE LED icicle lights for outdoor use. A number of the sets will not light or will light dimly. The total number of sets is 8 well under the stated 25 maximum. These lights are great when working. What could be the cause?
Would like to purchase ‘Constant On’ icicle lights (commercial grade)…. ITM/ART. 666633… but cannot locate after several hours on tele & internet. many Thanks!
Thanks for the information about 1962. Nice to see a tradition that dates from my favorite year over at http://www.roadtrip62.com/ . Way to go GE!
I bought a number of sets of GE Contstant On Random Sparkle Icicle Lights a few years ago. I am just using them for the first time this year. I had a problem with a couple of sets, where 1/3 of the string would just go out for no apparent reason. I can’t find loose bulbs etc. I would like to add a couple more sets, but can’t find them anywhere this year. I see commercial grade icicle lights at stores, but not the random sparkle ones. I like the connect 6 strings feature also. I originally purchasd them at Costco, item # 163119.
Thanks.