Philips Color Kinetics is supplying products to the The Bay Lights on the San Francisco Bay Bridge project that will provide an artistic display for a two year run starting next March. The organizers believe the display will be "the world's largest LED light sculpture" and the lights will be visible from San Francisco and points north, but will not distract drivers on the bridge.
The Bay Lights project is intended to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the San Francisco Bay Bridge and is the work of artist Leo Villareal. The lighting installation was begun this month and is due for completion in March, after which it will be illuminated for a minimum of two years.
The Bay Lights will include 25,000 programmable white LED lights made by Philips Color Kinetics and connected in a network. The project will stretch 1.8 miles and lights will be installed on 300 vertical cables. The tallest point of the installation will be 500 ft.
After completion, the lights will be illuminated from dusk to 2 AM. The partners in the project have estimated that it will cost $8 million, but they also project that the display will add $97 million to the local economy over the course of two years.
The display will use $11,000 per year in energy. But solar-energy specialists ClearPath has installed dedicated solar panels at a site in Davis, California that will fully offset the energy used by the display.
