The White River Valley Chamber of Commerce and LEDdynamics are pleased to report commercial quality solar powered holiday wreaths will grace Main Street in Randolph this year. Believed to be the first of their kind, and designed specifically to meet the community’s need, 40 solar powered wreaths are being tested this year, with the hopes of creating systems for more towns and businesses in the future.
“Randolph’s holiday decorations had come to the end of their useful life, and we were striving to find something that was environmentally friendly, and did not require the use of extension cords, light bulb strings, or rely on power from town street poles,” explained Emma Schuman, Director of the White River Valley Chamber of Commerce. “Every company we called told us the technology was just not available yet.” As a result, last January, the Chamber contacted Bill McGrath, President of LEDdynamics, an innovator in LED technology located in Randolph.
McGrath agreed to take on the challenge of designing, testing and creating a LED lighting system that uses individually mounted solar panels, battery packs, light sensors, and an automatic timing mechanism. “There were many challenges,” McGrath explained, “but we are very happy with the outcome of the project.”
According to Jeff Jacques, anEngineering Technician at LEDwho did much of the work on the project, some of those challenges were reported to be; the size of panel needed to collect light despite the “dark days of winter”, the wattage and brightness of traditional holiday LED bulbs, the effect of street lamps coming from light poles and the sensors used to tell the systems to turn on and off, and the effect of passing car headlamps on those same sensors.
The new system is efficient, easily installed and taken down, environmentally friendly and the lights are brighter than before. The system can be hung on any pole and does not require any electricity from the town.
Aside from working with LEDdynamics, the Chamber needed many other partners to take the project from conceptual to actual. Financial support was received from many donating companies, and some stepped up in a big way including LED, the Town of Randolph, Gifford Medical Center, Vermont Technical College and Lake Sunapee Bank. Randolph Technical Career Center students in the Building Trades program drilled the holes into the solar frames needed for attaching the solar systems onto the street poles. Several Town of Randolph workers provided assistance in mounting the wreaths and systems, as did Randolph Technical Career Center students in the Public Safety program. And Zina Dana and Kelly Pellegrino made the pine wreaths.
“It was a real community effort, resulting in a great product,” said Schumann. “We are very happy everyone pulled together to make it happen.”
Source:White River Valley Chamber of Commerce 12.4.2014