New Year's Eve Countdown Goes Green for 2008

The Times Square New Year's Eve ball this year is energy efficient.

Photo: Times Square Alliance

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The Times Square New Year's Eve ball turns 100 today at midnight, and it's designers are marking the occasion with a brand new ball that is not only more colorful and brighter, but far more energy efficient as well.

With nearly 10,000 LED bulbs (that's light-emitting diode, the most energy efficient bulb on the market), the ball will be twice as bright when it lights up at the stroke of midnight during the world's most famous new year's celebration.

And how energy-efficient are the new bulbs? The Los Angeles Times had this apt comparison: The ball will use only as much energy as about 10 toasters.

Here's more information about the new ball, from the Times Square Alliance.

Waterford Crystal created an exclusive “Let There Be Light” design for the crystal triangles on the new Ball. Designed and crafted by Waterford artisans in Ireland, “Let There Be Light” features a dramatically stylized, radiating sunburst on each of the 672 crystal triangles. Due to the new design and technical innovations, this represents an increase of 168 crystal triangles from last year’s Ball. And, for the first time, the crystal triangles will feature cutting on both sides. The double cutting maximizes the light refraction within the crystal triangles.

Philips Lighting provided the new solid state lighting technology for the Ball resulting in an astounding increase in brightness, energy efficiency, and color capabilities. The 9,576 Philips Luxeon LEDs replaced the 600 incandescent and halogen bulbs of the previous Ball. The new Ball is more than twice as bright and capable of creating a palette of more than 16 million vibrant colors and billions of patterns. Yet, the entire Times Square Ball will be lit with approximately the same amount of electricity as it takes to power ten toasters or a single oven/range.

Focus Lighting created a spectacular and unique lighting design that fully leverages the brilliant facets of the Waterford crystal triangles and Philips solid-state lighting technology. The lighting design skillfully illuminates the beauty of each individual triangle as well as the colorful moving patterns of light radiating from the Ball. In addition, for the first time ever, Focus Lighting designed a second layer of LEDs to showcase the geodesic structure of the Ball.

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