by Pete Danko, December 21st, 2010

The Pasadena Central Library is a classic, with its expansive hall, wood–paneling, tall book cases and long desks – and beautiful old pendant lighting fixtures hanging high above. There was a problem with the lights in those fixtures, however: they were energy–inefficient, really inefficient, burning at an extraordinary 900 watts apiece.

That’s now been fixed. In a press release, the LED light designer and manufacturer LEDtronics details how it gave the historic library a lighting makeover and trimmed its power use dramatically. According to the company, the city was able to save 788 watts with each of 30 reworked pendant fixtures by switching from metal–halide lighting to LEDs. On an annual basis, that reportedly adds up to around 50,000 kilowatt hours of power.

There’s a real money return with that level of power savings, but the library comes out ahead in other ways as well. With the old lights, it had to regularly schedule workers to replace the bulbs in the hard–to–reach suspended fixtures. That bother – and expense – is now virtually eliminated. In addition, the old lights were big heat producers, driving up summertime air–conditioning costs.

Lastly – but perhaps most importantly – it’s now “much brighter, and our customers are really enjoying it,” a library spokeswoman told the Pasadena Star. About the only thing left to find out is whether movie producers, who have frequently used the historic library for film shoots, are keen on the new energy–efficient lighting.