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Savings that Stick: Lighting Retrofit Reduces Energy Consumption and Maintenance Costs
June, 2009
By Greg Jones
A $100,000+ lighting retrofit at a Toronto-area manufacturing facility is expected to provide energy savings of more than $42,000 per year – translating into a payback on investment of less than 2.5 years. Project proponents began with a goal for a 50% reduction in the energy used for lighting.
“At the end of the day there’s got to be a business justification,” asserts Tal Rafailov, the Strategic Project Manager of the 120,000-square-foot facility housing Velcro Canada Inc’s (VCI) office, plant and warehouse ion Brampton, Ontario. However, the ambitious target also supported the goals of the company’s environmental management system.
Typically, lighting accounts for about 20% of the total energy use in manufacturing, 40% in an office setting and 70% in a warehouse. New lighting technology can significantly reduce consumption and deliver maintenance cost savings as well.
Decision makers at VCI first visited a nearby company that had recently undergone a lighting retrofit, where they could see the fixtures that had been installed and retrofitted, and discuss the reasons why. This company had a similar plant setup to VCI, with both manufacturing and warehousing operations, and a similar ceiling height.
Once a retrofit technology and approach were chosen, the work itself took one week. Since the office portion of the facility was closed for business at night, it presented fewer logistical challenges for the project. Meanwhile, the plant continued to operate five days a week, 24 hours a day.
In the office area, existing T-12 lights were retrofitted with new ballasts and kits to run T-8 lamps – a changeover estimated to reduce energy use by more than 60%. To minimize disruption in the manufacturing plant, the 400-watt (W) metal-halide fixtures were replaced one at a time with T-8 high-bay fluorescent fixtures, ballasts and lamps.
These lamps were chosen because they are ideal for ceiling heights of up to about 30 feet. With six 32-watt lamps for a total of 220 watts, the fixture uses considerably less power than the original metal halide fixtures, providing energy savings in excess of 50%. The T-8 system provides the added plus of a faster start-up with lights coming on instantly rather than the long start-up time required for metal halides.
LED lamps were installed to replace incandescent bulbs in all exit signs. Energy savings aside, the relatively short lifespan of incandescent lights (approximately 1,000 hours) means that the changeover to LED can reduce the time and nuisance of changing incandescent lamps every couple of months.
Incentives from government and local hydroelectric utilities can help cover the upfront costs of retrofit work and further reduce the payback period. For VCI, a $28,000 incentive provided the impetus to finally move ahead with changes that company officials had been considering. “That made it sweeter in terms of return on investment,” Rafailov notes.
The VCI retrofit is gauged to save more than 1,600 gigajoules (GJ) of electricity annually. Improved lighting quality also adds to workplace safety and employee morale.
Greg Jones is the President of NexStar Lighting Ltd., a provider of energy-efficient lighting for commercial, industrial, and big-box retail customers. For more information, see the web site at www.nexstarlighting.com. |
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