With more than 40,000 parking spaces to light Cox Enterprises, owner of Manheim Pennsylvania Auto Auction, the world’s largest auto auction carries a sizable electric load. The lot achieved 50% outdoor lighting energy savings through a retrofit of outdoor lighting—totaling 1.8 million kWh in annual savings over the 13.5 million square foot facility.
“It’s hard for a car dealership to be green,” says General Manager Jay Frank at Larry H. Miller Volkswagen in Lakewood, Colorado. “We keep the lights on inside and out almost all of the time but we knew we could be smarter about our energy use.” Frank had previously chosen compact fluorescent bulbs in his service lounge hoping to conserve energy but found the bulbs came with problems. He wasn’t happy with the light they emitted and says they burned out too often, so he was constantly replacing them, spending money he was trying to save.
An Ohio school district in need of financial assistance and committed to finding ways to reduce costs finds energy efficiency projects as a way to offset financial burden. Adams County Ohio Valley School District, rated “excellent” by the Ohio Department of Education, replaced 400 watt high intensity discharge, metal halide fixtures throughout the high school and elementary gymnasiums with 4 – foot fluorescent lamps (1” diameter tube and ballasts).They also implemented two HVAC rooftop unit upgrades with the help of incentives through the AEP Ohio gridSMART Prescriptive Program to save money on energy bills.
Read the full report: https://aepohio.com/global/utilities/lib/docs/save/business/programs/SuccessStories/AdamsCountySchoolDistrict.pdf
With 7 hospitals and 22 physician locations serving more than 9 Wisconsin counties, ThedaCare has ample room to implement and reap the benefits of building efficiency measures. At the Appleton Medical Center, ThedaCare’s Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign Award winning project involved replacing inefficient medium-wattage HID lighting fixtures at a 126,000 square foot parking structure with high efficiency low-wattage LED fixtures. The resulting energy savings exceed 80 percent of the previous usage. A 100-year old company and the third largest health care employer in Wisconsin, ThedaCare has now implemented LED exterior lighting throughout Appleton Medical Center.
Read the full report: https://www4.eere.energy.gov/alliance/sites/default/files/uploaded-files/LEEP%20CS%20-%20Thedacare.pdf
Ready to implement LED lighting? Visit us at www.brightwayledlighting.com
They’re not the most glamorous piece of infrastructure, unlike the bridges, airports and schools that get most of the public and political attention. But their 24/7 operation and sheer volume make parking garages low hanging fruit for huge energy savings. While there is no official number of parking garages in the U.S., the International Parking Institute pegs the number of parking spaces at anywhere from 100 million to 750 million. That’s a lot of parking housed in a lot of garages with a lot of lighting— much of which is inefficient or poorly controlled. As a result, there’s plenty of opportunity for technology upgrades, and sweetening the pot for owners are government grants or utility rebates that can accelerate the ROI on these projects.
Read the full article: http://www.leepcampaign.org/uploads/7/4/8/7/7487823/out_of_the_shadows_june_2012_lda.pdf
It is also important to note that security lighting acts as a psychological deterrent to criminals, because it increases the chance a crime will be witnessed. And if a crime does occur, it can be assessed after the fact through recorded video. Ask any camera manufacturer and you will get the same answer: higher illumination at the scene produces better results.
However, as security integrators know, not all light is created equal when viewed through a camera or when calculating strike time — which is the time it takes for a light to properly illuminate a scene once it powers up. The Color Rendition Index (CRI) also has to be considered — a measure of the ability of a light source to accurately reproduce color. In this context, accuracy is considered in relation to natural light, and is measured in a range from zero to 100, the value for daylight.
For security, Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights are the best option for parking garages across a number of factors, including CRI ratings, long life and actual price. Another important consideration is the even distribution of illumination: ideally, the light across a scene should maintain light-to-dark ratios of 4:1 for security applications.
With the economy still in recovery mode, business owners continue to look for ways to cut costs wherever possible. For many businesses, transitioning from antiquated lighting modalities can be an attractive and cost-saving alternative. There are real and easily quantifiable cost-saving opportunities when it comes to alternatives to traditional lighting sources.
Business owners across all industries seeking strategies to reduce costs and save money have found conversions to LED lighting a very attractive route; and with the LED market having become even more affordable in recent months, there continues to be significant spikes in the popularity of switching to LED.