| Case Study: Ice Center At The Promenade |
| Thursday, October 06, 2011 | ||||||||||||
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We talk a lot about energy-efficient retrofits of warehouses and manufacturing plants, stores and parking garages. But, those are far from the only facilities that can benefit from an energy-efficient lighting retrofit. Case in point, the Ice Center At The Promenade in Westminster, Colorado. Thanks to a retrofit by our partner Colorado Lighting that used our energy-efficient light fixtures, the Ice Center is looking at saving close to $30,000 a year in energy costs.
If you're not familiar with the Ice Center, you should know that it's far from your normal neighborhood ice rink. The Ice Center houses three sheets of ice in a single facility and hosts everything from figure-skating lessons all the way through NHL practice-sessions. Plus, it's nestled up right next to some world class eating and shopping establishments. It is, in short, the facility that would-be Wayne Gretzkys and Michelle Kwans the world over dream of. So, when Colorado Lighting came to us with the opportunity to provide fixtures for an energy-efficient lighting retrofit of the Ice Center, we were thrilled. Before the relighting project, the Ice Center's rinks were lit with metal halide lamps that used over 1,000 watts per fixture. Working closely with our partners at Colorado Lighting, we decided that the best fixture for the job was our HBT high-bay in a mixture of 10 and 12 lamp T5HO configurations. The HBT is designed precisely to replace 1,000 watt metal halide fixtures with a relatively small 4' long energy-efficient fluorescent fixture. This allowed us to match the light-output of the rinks' existing fixtures while consuming about 35% - 45% less electricity per fixture. Colorado Lighting also installed bi-level switching controls, which let the light output of each fixture to be adjusted by switching on either some or all of the lamps in that fixture. Colorado Lighting estimates that this feature alone will save the Ice Center more than $10,000 per year. With Colorado Lighting's technicians performing the retrofit, the entire project went smoothly. This means that today, the Ice Center is on its way to saving $30,000 a year in energy costs while its skaters enjoy aesthetically pleasing lighting, with light-levels that can be adjusted to their needs. Thanks in part to the over $20,000 in rebates that Colorado Lighting secured for the project, the Ice Center will have made back its initial investment in the project in just one and a half years. After that, we're sure they'll find a use for the extra nearly $30,000 they'll have in their budget every year. We'd like to thank the Ice Center for taking on the project, and Colorado Lighting for being, as always, an excellent partner. Check out the galleries below for before, after and installation photos from the project. If you have a facility that you think could benefit from an energy-efficient lighting retrofit, give our Service Hub a call at 714-386-5550. They'll be happy to put you in touch with one of our partners who can help you slash your energy bills for years to come. .
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