An interesting subject line flashed across my email today—“ Growing profits with rooftop agriculture: Bright future for New York’s urban food entrepreneurs”. It caught my attention because New York seems like such an unlikely landscape for farming—you know, given the space constraints. I scanned down the page—roof top agriculture—schools—nonprofits. Then something that caught my eye—“A 22,000 square foot commercial rooftop farm would cost between $1.5 - $2million to build; but can generate up to $1 million in annual revenue”

I do wonder if there are any commercial real estate developers planning such a venture or perhaps who just started a simple green roof that grew out of control. The press release hints at big opportunity: “There are 5,000 hectares of un-shaded rooftop space in NYC, enough to meet the annual vegetable needs of over 30 million people.”

The company is BrightFarm Systems and here’s one farm that’s underway: a 12,000 rooftop facility in Jamaica Queens, which will be the world’s first commercial rooftop hydroponic farm. They will grow fresh produce for restaurants and other wholesale buyers in New York City. The $1.4 million project will be solar powered, and it is expected to produce 30 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables each year. www.brightfarmsystems.com

You may have heard about LED lighting in the news recently. There are several cities around the country converting their street lights to be LED street lights. No more metal halide or high pressure sodium bulbs. As you would imagine these types of streetlights need to be quite powerful to light up the blacktop 25 feet below the pole. Sure enough they are bright!

So what about LED lights on your property in the common areas that you are paying the electricity on? Well such replacement bulbs exist and they make CFLs look bad.

There are two types of LED bulbs; high power and low power. You have most likely only seen low powered bulbs which hardware stores and Costco try and sell. The problem with low power bulbs is that they do not give off enough lumens, light. High powered bulbs do exist and are fantastic.

LED bulbs cost $40 to $60 each. When you factor in the length of time your lights are on, the replacement cost of incandescent and CFLs, the cost of electricity, and the low wattage LEDs consume you will appreciate the power of LEDs. Look at this real example.

Dave F. of Los Angeles, CA, purchased 177 LED bulbs for the common area of this 125 unit complex, Sussex Manor, in Orange, TX.

He replaced 65 watt incandescent bulbs with 6 watt LED bulbs. This measured a savings of over 90% on his utility bill for the portion dedicated to lighting. This positive changed saved Dave F. $37.18 PER BULB per year starting in year 1. At an 8% CAP rate Dave F. raised the value of his property by $82,261! ($37.18 X 177 =6,580.86 ÷ .08 = $82,261)

How much did it cost Dave F. to replace the bulbs? Answer: $9,549. With the energy savings that the 6 watt bulbs save, Dave F. will experience an ROI of the LED bulbs in 1 year 3 months and 25 days. This assumes that the common area lights are on for 11 hours a day. As the cost of electricity rises he will find his investment to have an even higher rate of return.

As an added benefit, high power LED lights last for 50,000 hours, so Dave’s maintenance staff does not have to purchase and replace bulbs for the next 12 years 5 months and 13 days.

Spending $9,549 to save $6,580 annually for the next 12+ years and raise the value of his property at an 8% cap rate to $82,261 is not just a good financial decision it is environmentally smart too!

In the Aug. 3, 2009 issue of Time Magazine (This week’s issue; Bush & Cheney on the cover) page 54 gives LED lighting a big thumbs up. It references that Google recently purchased 25,000 LED bulbs.

About the author: Scott Yahraus is the president of Apartment Energy Consultants and Standard LED Lighitng. Visit www.GreenRetrofitter.com and/or www.standard-led.com to learn more. Email Scott directly at Scott@GreenRetrofitter.com