City of Cleveland's talks with Chinese LED lighting company continuing
By Mark Gillispie, The Plain Dealer [1]
March 27, 2010, 3:55AM
PD file photoMayor Frank Jackson CLEVELAND, Ohio -- During his State of the City address earlier this month, Mayor Frank Jackson raised expectations with the announcement that Cleveland Public Power commissioner Ivan Henderson was in China "finalizing" a deal for an LED lighting company to establish its U.S. headquarters here.
That deal with Sunpu Opto Semiconductor could create as many as 350 "green" jobs to Cleveland, the mayor announced.
"This spring, we will submit the project for approval to Cleveland City Council and I look forward to working with them to help turn this vision into reality," Jackson said in his speech.
Finalizing might have been a small rhetorical leap by the mayor, but city officials say work continues to bring the Ningbo-based company here.
Henderson's March trip to China was his third since last year. He first made contact with Sunpu Opto officials in August during a trip to Japan and China to study waste-to-energy technology and returned to China in December to continue talks with the company.
The city and Sunpu Opto signed a memorandum of understanding during the March visit. That memo lays out how negotiations with the company will proceed, Jackson said in an interview Thursday. Henderson will brief City Council on the negotiations next week.
"This actually reverses jobs going to China from the United States," Jackson said. "It's no different than what happened in the auto industry, when many cars people were buying were being made in other countries and they moved manufacturing facilities to the United States."
Henderson said Sunpu Opto could begin manufacturing LED lights in Cleveland within three to five years. There is further hope that the presence of Sunpu Opto here could lure other related businesses, furthering Jackson's aim to create a sustainable city and economy in Cleveland by 2019.
"This company has a history in the last 10 years of growing rapidly," Henderson said in an interview. "They have a very good product."
E-mail requests for an interview with Sunpu Opto officials have gone unanswered.
Company representatives have visited Cleveland several times and have looked at potential plant locations, said Alan Seifullah, a spokesman for Cleveland's Department of Public Utilities. The company has not sought any tax abatements or other forms of financial help to locate here, Seifullah said.
LED -- light-emitting diodes -- are becoming an increasingly popular form of lighting. Technological advances have made LEDS increasingly practical for general lighting. LEDs are more expensive than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, but are far more energy efficient, last longer and are more durable.
Cleveland has been replaced 600 of its 1,100 traffic signals with LEDs since 2003 and is considering a plan to replace its 67,000 streetlights with LEDs as well.
The city's sustainability chief, Andrew Watterson, said it's not known how much in energy costs the city has saved from LED traffic signals. The city will realize savings in maintenance costs because the LED lights last about seven years compared to six months for the old traffic lights, Watterson said.
Henderson said the city spends $12 million a year to power streetlights. LED streetlighting could reduce those electric costs by as much as 70 percent, he said.
A few U.S. cities are in the process of refitting streetlights with LEDs. San Jose plans to spend $50 million to replace 65,000 street lights with LEDs. Los Angeles is moving ahead with plans to replace 140,000 streetlights with LEDs in the next five years.
"The real advantage to Cleveland is they're not just going to sell us bulbs, they're going to assemble and manufacture them here as well," Henderson said.
City officials say they will negotiate with Sunpu Opto on the price for LED streetlights, but acknowledged that the purchase would have to be competitively bid.
http://www.cleveland.com/cityhall/index.ssf/2010/03/city_of_clevelands_talks_with.html [2]