Ohio Facility Increases Efficiency by Reducing its Lighting

When it comes to making our facilities more energy efficient, it’s no secret that upgrading the lighting can do wonders for the energy bill.

Lighting is one of the features of a facility that is always on, so it makes sense to investigate ways to cut down on how much energy those fixtures use.

At our Parma Metal Center in Ohio, through collaboration with General Electric, the plant’s baler house underwent a project to replace 80 metal halide and fluorescent fixtures with 68 LED fixtures from Albeo Technologies.

Not only did this reduce the amount of lighting needed, it’ll provide an annual savings of more than $30,000 plus an additional $8,000 in annual maintenance costs.

The up-front investment, in labor and material, will run close to $55,000, which means in just under a year, we will  reap the financial benefits of this efficiency upgrade.

From an environmental perspective, the upgrades will save more than 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity which, when calculated to reflect carbon emissions, totals 354 metric tons of CO2 avoided. To give you an idea of what that means, it’s enough electricity saved to power 50 homes for a year.

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We talk often about the “low-hanging fruit” of sustainability.  These are the easy steps a company can take to reduce their carbon footprint. And lighting upgrades certainly fall into that category.

But just because it’s easy doesn’t negate the importance. It’s a huge part of our overall energy efficiency goals as a company.

We have committed to reduce energy use at our global facilities by 20 percent by 2020. From 2010 to 2012, we reduced it 7 percent, putting us well on our way down the path.

And our lighting management plays a big part in that improvement.

Every facility we own has lights. Just look up and see energy efficiency opportunities all around.