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| Photo credit: Clean Light Green Light |
Michigan-based Clean Light Green Light (CLGL), one of the premiere manufacturers of LED (light-emitting diode) lighting in the U.S., started up less than ten years ago in the garage of CEO and co-founder David McKinney. Now the company has an international customer list that includes Fortune 500 companies, municipalities such as Fairbanks, Alaska, and the first fully LED-lit commercial building in North America, Marvel Food & Deli.
While most still consider LED lighting to be cutting-edge technology, McKinney and his associates have been designing, manufacturing and selling their products for nearly a decade. McKinney says that back when they first began developing LED fixtures, “Many of the traditional companies said that LED is just a passing phase, but I never believed that. I thought the science was so strong and believed, there’s an industry here that’s yet to be built, we just kind of have to build it from the ground up.”
Recently, that industry has exploded. In 2007, the LED lighting market was valued at just $340 million, and that number is expected to grow to $7.3 billion by 2014. “You’ve now seen the adoption of LED from all the major lighting people, and anyone who doesn’t adopt LED technology is going to be left in the dust,” McKinney added.
The enormous potential for electricity conservation through LEDs will only make them more popular as the nation turns to addressing climate change and energy security issues. In addition to saving an average of between 50 and 80 percent of energy costs compared to conventional lighting, CLGL’s products also last longer, thereby reducing lifecycle energy usage and carbon emissions.
While LEDs are still far more expensive to purchase and install than compact fluorescents (CFLs), their prices are dropping rapidly, and LEDs’ dramatically reduced energy consumption can more than compensate for its higher upfront costs, especially in high-use commercial applications. Moreover, LEDs can last 10 times as long as CFLs and, unlike fluorescent lighting, they do not contain mercury, a toxic metal that can be released if a CFL bulb breaks during usage or disposal.
With lighting currently representing about 17.5 percent of global electricity consumption and incurring annual costs of $40 billion in the U.S. alone, a new, high-performing lighting technology like LEDs could make a profound difference in tackling energy problems and improving economic efficiency.
Industry analysts seem to agree, predicting that by 2020 LEDs will supply 46 percent of the $4.4 billion U.S. market for lamps in the commercial, industrial and outdoor stationary sectors.
CLGL is well-positioned to take advantage of the LED industry boom. Between 2008 and 2009, in the middle of the recession, the business grew by more than 2000 percent, and McKinney reports that growth since then has been exponential. The company recently announced a partnership with Marina d’Or, an international real estate development firm, to install LED lighting on its global properties. CLGL was chosen from more than 30 LED vendors considered. “Making custom products and using top-grade components are what differentiate us from [other LED companies],” McKinney stated.
Despite the industry’s impressive growth, however, McKinney says that the government could do more to boost demand. “We really need a comprehensive clean energy bill,” he said. “And then you would have the private sector investing in these technologies. They’ll start to look at their infrastructure and think, ‘If we made a change, we could create value not just to us as a company but to the world.’”
More government support for domestic clean energy manufacturers could also help create U.S. manufacturing jobs—something the country desperately needs after losing a third of our manufacturing jobs since 2000. CLGL has 16 employees, some of whom are part-time. Though McKinney expects his staff will have doubled by this time next year, he explains that CLGL could create more jobs if the government increased program support and loans for companies like his. “The Chinese give loans out to small clean energy manufacturers, but in the States those go to large corporations. Where’s the love for us small guys, who create more jobs?”
CLGL originally began its manufacturing in China, but McKinney moved much of the company’s production to Michigan as soon as he could afford to. “We already had opportunities and grants to move to other states, but within an hour drive here I can build anything,” he said.
Dana Sevakis, Apollo Alliance’s Michigan State Coordinator, has witnessed McKinney’s commitment to Michigan firsthand. “David McKinney’s dedication to domestic clean energy manufacturing is exemplary. Not only is he devoted to growing the industry and making it in Michigan, but he’s also been a tireless advocate for the policies needed to really make it happen.”
Strong government support for small manufacturers will be essential in helping CLGL and other companies thrive in the global clean energy economy. Measures that strengthen the domestic supply chain—such as grants or loan guarantees to firms retooling for clean energy manufacturing—would help companies like CLGL maintain U.S. production.
Though this support has so far been slow in coming, McKinney sounds a note of hope. “We were once the bullets of democracy; we need to come together and become the bullets of environmental change. It can be done, but it’s going to be a hard struggle for people to realize that.”
