Monthly Archives: October 2017

The Benefits of Quality Lighting in Parking Garages Are Too Obvious to Ignore

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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

Regency Centers Saves 88% with LED Parking Lot Lighting Upgrade

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Regency Centers is a national owner, operator, and developer of neighborhood and community shopping centers with over 300 properties throughout the United States. Regency Centers recently upgraded the parking lot lighting at Rona Plaza in Santa Ana, California. Rona Plaza is a grocery-anchored shopping center with 52,000 square-feet of gross lettable area and 250 parking spaces across 77,000 square feet of parking area. Regency Centers retrofitted the existing parking lot and exterior wall mounted fixtures, which were high-intensity discharge (HID) fixtures, with high efficiency LED fixtures coupled with a wireless dimming system. The retrofit resulted in energy savings of nearly 88% compared to pre-existing conditions and was recognized by the Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign with the Highest Percentage Energy Savings in a Retrofit at a Single Parking Area award.

Read the full report here.

Raising the Sustainability Bar

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Following an assessment of the light bulbs used in their restaurants, The Cheesecake Factory completed a re-lamp in each restaurant by installing low wattage bulbs. This reduces their kilowatt usage by 2% to 3% each year based on a standard 10,000 square foot restaurant. In addition, they are upgrading their lighting to more energy efficient products as they become available, and are currently testing new LED lighting to replace neon lights, which are currently being used in certain areas of their restaurants.

Read the full report:   http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/corporate-social-responsibility/sustainability/resources/#

University of California San Francisco Saves 88% with Adaptive LED Parking Lot Lighting

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In 2012, UC San Francisco launched a pilot demonstration of energy-efficient lighting on the top level of its two-tier parking garage at 2340 Post Street. That level of the parking structure had lacked lighting for some time, but a sharp increase in use prompted some calls expressing safety concerns. More light was clearly needed, but the project team had to be careful not to disturb residents of the apartment building next door.

Dimmable, full-cutoff LED light fixtures were paired with motion sensors and incorporated into a wireless lighting control system to give the campus a smart, simple way to monitor and manage lighting energy use for the area. The six fixtures now serve as the basis of a network that parking enforcement can access via Web interface to adjust scheduling and tuning.

Read the full report here.

LED Replacement Fixtures Yield $135K Annual Savings and 1.3M Kilowatt Hours

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One and Two Potomac Yard, both LEED Platinum certified for Existing Buildings, are well known in the Washington Metropolitan area for their sustainability and green building practices.  Property management and ownership, Cassidy Turley and USAA Real Estate respectively, continue to push for sustainability and energy reduction to reduce operating expenses and add value to the assets.

Located on a formerly abandoned railroad yard in Arlington, Virginia, the two 12-story buildings are comprised of approximately 620,000 sq. ft. of office and retail, conference center space, and a fitness center facility; and two five-level, above/below grade parking decks totaling 300,000 sq. ft.

Read the full report:   http://www.leepcampaign.org/uploads/7/4/8/7/7487823/potomac_yard_garage_lighting_retrofit_case_study_final.pdf

Investing in Their Future: Portland’s Purchase and Conversion of an LED Street Lighting System

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The City of Portland, Oregon is midway through the process of converting its street lighting system from the previous generation high-pressure sodium (HPS) to modern light-emitting diode (LED) technology. In getting to this point, the City purchased a large portion of its street lighting system and encountered a range of issues among the stakeholders, some of which were expected and some not. As these issues may be more or less common to other municipalities pursuing street lighting purchases and conversions, this paper identifies some of the challenges encountered and details of how they were addressed to help inform and facilitate future lighting transitions elsewhere. Preliminary discussion of the results and lessons learned are also included.

Read the full report here.

Prestigious Princeton Sees the LED Light

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One of America’s most prestigious universities is in the middle of an ambitious LED replacement program – more than 100,000 fixtures.  Princeton University is implementing many different energy-mitigation projects on campus, and lighting was determined to be a strategy with one of the best overall paybacks. The university’s Energy Group is funding the program, which represents the first significant lighting upgrade at Princeton in more than 20 years.

Read the full article:   http://www.facilitiesnet.com/lighting/article/Princeton-University-Lighting-Program-Embraces-LEDs–16610

Case Study: Casino Parking Structures

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The second largest gaming company in the world by revenue, MGM Resorts International (MGM) has recently installed energy efficient parking area lighting and controls at 65% of its U.S. facilities. With 20 U.S. facilities in NV, MI, and MS, MGM lighting projects have covered more than 8 million square feet of parking area. By replacing more than 4,400 existing metal halide and high-pressure sodium light fixtures in the parking facilities with a mixture of LED and induction fixtures, MGM saved 4.5 million kWh per year across their portfolio.

Read the full report here.

Now is the Time to Upgrade to LED Lighting

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If you are planning to upgrade your old, expensive lighting to highly efficient, low maintenance LED, you should consider purchasing it before the IRS Section 179 tax deduction expires at the end of the year.

What is Section 179 and why is it important to you?

The 2017 IRS Section 179 tax depreciation schedule is a tax break given to your small-to-medium sized business that allows deduction of the full purchase price of equipment purchased – or financed – against your gross income. Obsolete equipment and outdated technology can negatively affect your business. This is a significant incentive for you and your company to make investments in purchasing equipment and growing your business. Depreciation is normally used by businesses to write off the value of the purchased equipment over the life of the asset. Using the IRS approved Section 179 deduction, you can write off up to $500,000 of this year’s equipment purchases against your 2016 taxes resulting in the USA government effectively paying up to 38% of the cost of the machine.

The equipment purchased must be purchased and placed in service by December 31, 2017 to qualify!

To learn more please visit our website at: https://lnkd.in/eg-r3tE

Kimco Enhances Curb Appeal, Safety, Security and Shopping Activity with LED Lighting Upgrades

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Kimco Realty Corporation’s large facility portfolio could be considered quite challenging to some organizations trying to reduce energy savings, but Kimco was able to provide upgrades to 160 sites across 25 states over 2 years. The 50-year old real estate investment trust based in New Hyde Park, New York was a 2014 Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign winner for Largest Absolute Number of Facility Upgrades. Kimco has reduced their lighting energy usage primarily through the use of lighting controls for their parking lots representing approximately 51 million square feet of parking area.

Kimco, which owns and operates over 800 shopping centers in North and South America, can add their LEEP accomplishments to their 2013 National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) award for leadership in sustainability and energy efficiency.

Read the full report here.