November 2015 — Property Management Quarterly —
Page 21
R
olling out a new LED
lighting plan can
significantly reduce
lighting energy costs,
putting more money
back into your pockets in less
than two years’ time. LED
provides commercial business
owners and property manag-
ers with positive long-term
cash flow, immediate energy
savings, enhanced visibility,
clean appearance, tax incen-
tives, cash rebates and health
benefits. Not only that, but
since some LED bulbs last
beyond 10 years, the annual
maintenance, time, energy
and cost of replacing bulbs is
blue-penciled.
LED applications service all
industries and municipalities
such as Boulder’s Dark Sky
Initiative. By adding automat-
ed control systems, including
presence and absence detec-
tors, brightness controls that
– by design – readjust LED illu-
mination per the time of day
and perform load shedding
by automatically turning off
nonessential lighting at peak
times by a facility-controlled
energy network management
system deliver more cost sav-
ings.
Businesses that switched to
LED lighting in 2015 already
are seeing savings. LED solu-
tions provide energy and
maintenance savings; some
go above and beyond with
savings up to 90 percent.
Don’t believe it? Check out
how and why these projects
saved serious coinage by
switching to LED lights.
In 2015WorldVenture, a
Christian missionary orga-
nization headquartered in
Littleton, completed its office
building and parking facility
lighting upgrade.Vice Presi-
dent John Benza and Facilities
Manager David Locke were
looking for ways to reduce
their lighting energy costs but,
more importantly, wanted
to ensure that the solution
offered would enhance the
look and feel of their existing
lighting.
The LED lighting replaced
1,300 existing 4-foot fluores-
cent tube lights, 300 75-watt
PAR flood lights, 40 90-watt
halogen bulbs and 60 75-watt
household bulbs in the offices
and conference rooms, as well
as the hallways and common
areas. The exterior parking-
pole lighting consisted of 16
400-watt metal halide, which
was reduced to 12 148-watt
parking-pole LED lights.
WorldVenture went from an
average monthly lighting bill
of $12,560, or $150,700 annual-
ly, to nearly $6,200 a month, or
$74,400 annually. This annual
savings is on target to provide
over $80,000 in positive cash
flow.
With energy savings over 54
percent and energy rebates of
35 percent, great strides were
made to reduce wattages with
long-term, maintenance-free
LED.WorldVenture received a
return on investment of less
than 20 months while con-
tinuing to save annually for
years to come.
Consider this, the benefits
of LED lighting are quickly
producing actions with LED
conversion. Denver’s Front
Range along with the Colo-
rado business marketplace
are catching on. New com-
pliance laws and a variety
of incentive programs were
established to help offset the
costs of reducing electricity.
With many businesses start-
ing to turn their challenges
into opportunity, most decide
to go with LED to maximize
savings while improving light-
ing output and to provide
uniform light that maintains
output over time while reduc-
es overall operating expenses.
However, as a catalyst to
move some businesses to LED
lighting more swiftly, smart
financing options are avail-
able.
Alternatively speaking, by
focusing on return on invest-
ment, energy rebates, annual
energy-cost
reductions
and time
horizons,
programs
can be cre-
ated where
the imme-
diate ener-
gy savings
actually
expands
cash flow to
the point of
having the
LED light-
ing with installation paying
for itself from the monthly
energy-reduction savings.
This eliminates budgetary
constraints to make it an
immediate positive cash-flow
qualifier.
These savings are a signifi-
cant viable option for many. In
NewYork City’s famed Chat-
wal Hotel, the hotel will save
$98,583 in lighting energy and
$25,672 in maintenance costs.
Total annual savings is esti-
mated at $124,255 with a pay-
back period of two months. In
addition, by using the avail-
able LED lighting prescriptive
rebates and incentives pro-
grams the cost per LED lamp
was further reduced to $1 and
decreased the payback period
to four days. That is 90 per-
cent in overall energy savings.
O’Malley Beverage, based in
St. Joseph, Missouri, looked at
the lighting option to address
issues with its loading dock
that had high ceilings and
outdated metal halide lamps,
which are difficult to replace.
Another challenge of O’Malley
Beverage was that workers
had to adjust from the low-
light levels in the dock to the
refrigerated storage, where
light levels are higher.
The company replaced 52
400-watt metal halide fixtures
with 34 114-watt LED high-bay
luminaires. The LED fixtures
reduced lighting energy by 82
percent or 88,191 kWh annu-
ally. The high-bay luminaires
will last approximately 80,000
hours before needing to be
replaced. The annual main-
tenance cost was reduced by
$1,284, and lighting-energy
costs were lowered by $8,566,
which gave the company a
total estimated annual sav-
ings of just about $10,000 in
year one.
As demonstrated byWord-
Venture, The Chatwal Hotel
and O’Malley Beverage, in
many cases the monthly
energy saving and better light-
ing appearances are extensive.
The sooner the switch, the
sooner money is pocketed.
Consider what could be done
with additional thousands in
monthly cash flow.
s
Vendor Trends
Scott Sherwood
President,
Sherwood
LED Lighting,
Centennial
