O'Connor Chevrolet Shines the Light on Savings
(Reprint from TRADE ALLY Newsletter)
Customer Profile
O'Connor Chevrolet was founded June 28, 1966 in an old building on West Main Street in downtown Rochester. They have been in their current location since May 12, 1969, and they believe it is one of the best-equipped and well-maintained shops in the Rochester area. O'Connor has a policy to continually update their facility, equipment and employee capabilities through training and education.
Business situation
O'Connor Chevrolet was facing the all-so-familiar situation of how to increase light output and quality of light, reduce overall energy consumption and improve the bottom line for their parking lot. Mark O'Connor (owner) and Chris Snyder's (GM) goal was to move away from the 1,000-watt metal halide fixtures (high energy consumption and high maintenance) to 260-watt high output LED fixtures to reduce energy consumption and maintenance costs, but also to improve overall light quality. As a car dealer, the goal at night is to have the highest possible quality of light to show off their inventory as possible to sell more cars.
Technical situation
O'Connor Chevrolet's parking lot included 48 1,000-watt metal halide fixtures on 28-foot, 1969 vintage poles that needed to be replaced. Their annual run hours were 4,380 and the energy charge is 9 cents per kilowatt-hour. The biggest challenge was proving to the customer that LED lighting would significantly reduce their energy consumption and maintenance and vastly improve their overall light quality. After considerable evaluation of the technical data presented, O'Connor Chevrolet decided to move forward with the parking lot project.
Solution
JACOMB Lighting decided to provide O'Connor Chevrolet with 260-watt high output LED fixtures and wireless dimming controls that would allow the customer to capture the additional savings late at night when their parking lot didn't need to be fully illuminated. They teamed up with a local electrical contractor that O'Connor Chevrolet felt comfortable with and implemented the plan. JACOMB implemented three separate zones, and at different times during the night they dim those zones an additional 25% to 75% to capture additional savings. The client can change the way a zone or zones dim at any time. The control features offered in the Rialto give a remote network administrator full control over the time management of the light and insight into the amount of power savings realized. Rialto also incorporates power consumption meters for real-time consideration. Erratic behavior, "day burners" and burnt-out lamps can be reported in real time. Rialto provides a self-supporting mode in which a loss of communication with the administrator enables a continuance of operation on a pre-determined schedule. The overall project cost was $102,400 and the RG&E incentive was $51,200 (half of the project total cost).
Parking Lot Lighting Before
Parking Lot Lighting After
Benefits
• The project savings for O'Connor Chevrolet are:
• Base kilowatt-hours: 253,339/yr.; $22,800/yr.
• New projected kilowatt-hours: 26,858/yr.; $2,417/yr.
• Savings: 226,481 kilowatt-hours/yr. or $20,383/yr.
• ROI is 2.5 yrs.
At this time O'Connor Chevrolet is looking to expand their parking lot on the back side of the building. Additional poles, fixtures and wireless controls will be needed.
JACOMB Lighting offers a full line of LED, induction and traditional lighting for both indoor and outdoor applications. They also offer lighting controls for both hard-wired and wireless applications. Their group will provide for each client a fully comprehensible quote that will include incentives, full photometrics whether indoor or outdoor and financing options to help fund projects with no out of pocket expense. They work with a line of electrical contractors to provide a full turnkey project if desired.
See the Letter of recommendation (PDF)
