Energy Efficient School Parking Lot Lighting
Budget Strapped School Systems Should Be Looking At Energy Efficient Strategies...
Energy Efficient Schools Reduce Annual Energy Expenses and Annual Maintenance Expenses....
Budgets are being cut, teachers laid off, even schools being closed!
Why is it then that money saving avenues such as energy efficiency upgrades, preventive maintenance and power monitoring are not implemented when considering budget issues in the schools?
Energy Efficiency IS NOT Complicated...
Don't let all the technical jargon, spread sheets, and big words fool you. While energy savings is a science.....it's not rocket science.
A Inefficient School Parking Lot Lit Up
All Night
It is much easier to understand the value of energy efficiency by looking at an example. To show you the benefit a school could gain, I will show you an example from a school parking lot near my home.
The Facts and Assumptions
The lighting is on a timer and runs all night long. To create a baseline, let's assume the lights are on 11 hrs. per night (Assumption) as an average run time. The fixtures are all 400 watt metal halide (Fact) and I counted 58 heads total (Fact).
Energy Efficient Parking Lot = Reducing Wattage By At Least 50%...
The best application for this type of parking lot, is an Inductive Fluorescent light fixture. I like to use these fixtures because of the reduction in wattage and the reduced maintenance required.
The old wattage for the 400 Watt Metal Halide is 458 Watts. The new wattage with the Inductive fixture is 215 Watts.
The fixtures are a 1 for 1 replacement and will actually result in more, better quality light than the existing Metal Halide. So here's where we sit.
Schools Can Cut Parking Lot Kilowatt Hours by 50%
Old = 106,188 KWH per year
New = 50,067 KWH per year
That's based on 4015 annual hours of usage and a electric rate of .11 per KWH.
50% LESS Kilowatt Hours = 50% Savings...or more
Old = $11,680 annually to run
New = $5507 annually to run
Annual Savings = $6,173
Reduce Maintenance Costs
Now let's look at mainenance savings. It deffinetly fits into the formula because Metal Halide is costly to kep running, especially if it's older.
With a 13,000 - 15,000 hr lamp life, let's assume we have to relamp every 3 years. I can tell you that's pretty conservative because lamps usually die before then.
Cost to Maintain Existing 400 Watt Metal Halide
58 lamps @ $30 each = $1,740
Lift rental = $300
28 hrs of qualified labor @ $60 per hr = $1,680
Grand total = $3,720.00 *every 3 years*
Cost to Maintain New Fixtures
The new fixtures have 100,000 hour lamp life. That's a bit over 20 years maintenance free. In that period of time you would do roughly 7 relamp projects at $3,720.00.
That's a life lamp life savings of $26,040.00 or to fit it in our annual savings it averages to $1,240 per year.
It should be mentioned that replacing Metal Halide ballasts were not included in these numbers but would absolutely be needed at some point. So my numbers are probably low.
Final Numbers
So we have:
Annual energy savings = $6,173
Annual maintenance savings = $1,240
Grand total = $7,413 annually
Not to bad for lights that were costing the schools $11,680 per year to run!
Looking Long Term...What Makes Sense?
The life of the Inductive Fluorescent is 20 years, so let's compare costs over the next 20 years for both:
Old Fixture
$11, 680 x 20 Years = $233,600
New Fixture
$5,507 x 20 Years = $110,140
Difference = $123,460 in savings over 20 years....for just 1 parking lot in the schoool district.
Key Takeaway: Schools could solve budgeting problems by looking to energy efficient strategies that reduce long term expenses.
That's it?
Yes, it all boils down to simple wattage reduction and some math.
Hovey Electric helps school districts calculate savings utilizing energy efficient strategies. By creating a photometric layout of a parking lot, the energy efficiency experts at Hovey Electric show you where you can increase the lighting quality, but reduce energy consumption.
We take the guess work out of difficult terminology and calculations to show you ROI, and put the entire package together for your school.