Case Study: Lighting Change Shows Two-Year Payback

June, 2008

Replacing the lighting fixtures in a garage is often a daunting decision. Is it cost effective? Which is the right supplier? Does the change warrant the process? One organization found answers that fit its needs.
A leading integrated health plan organization headquartered in California was looking to reduce energy costs in six multi-level parking garages. The company partnered with Monterey Lighting Solutions to devise an energy efficient lighting system upgrade.
The facility’s existing system, 1185 one-hundred-and-fifty watt high pressure sodium canopy fixtures, consumed over 188 watts per fixture drawing over 1.8 million kilowatt hours annually. With 24/7 operation, the parking garage’s annual operating energy costs exceeded $200,000.
Monterey Lighting Solutions, which specializes in offering their customers energy-efficient, cost-effective lighting systems, recommended a one for one retrofit of their existing canopy lights with Metalux VT3 Vaportite luminaires from Cooper Lighting. The resulting retrofit of their installed HID fixtures with energy efficient fluorescent Vaportite fixtures resulted in a 67% energy savings.
The lighting system upgrade provided annual energy savings exceeding $130,000 and a payback of less than 2 years. With the goal of energy savings in mind, the customer selected a one lamp 54W T5HO luminaire with 5,000 initial lumens and 62 input watts.
The luminaire was supplied with an optional 95% specular Miro 4 reflector providing increased optical efficiency by directing more useful light out of the fixture into the parking structure. In parking garages where the safety and security of the occupants is a necessity, the high color rendering and increased visual acuity of fluorescent lighting systems versus traditional HID sources offered a visible improvement.
In addition to the financial savings reaped through this upgrade, the customer decreased its overall carbon footprint because local power plants will not need to burn fossil fuels to support the former lighting system. The savings achieved by this lighting system upgrade is equivalent to 858 tons of CO2 emissions. By removing those quantities of pollutants from the air, this lighting project will have the same annual affect on the environment as planting 2531 trees or removing 153 cars from the road.
For more information on Cooper Lighting’s VT3 Series please visit www.cooperlighting.com. For more information on Monterey Lighting Solutions visit www.montereycorp.com