February 23, 2007—Lime Energy’s energy lighting retrofit project at a large packaging materials warehouse and office resulted in a 24 percent reduction in power consumption, according to the company.
The energy reduction calculation at McDonald Packaging, Inc., was based on the same three-month period (August through October) before and after the retrofit. Crews worked off shift, typically putting in as much as 16 to 18 hours a day to complete the job as quickly as possible with a minimum inconvenience during the retrofit process, which took less than three weeks.
The 24 percent reduction in power consumption was based on a daily average of kilowatt hours consumed in the two three-month periods. Consumption for the full three months was 282,318 kilowatt hours in 2005 compared to 208,630 in 2006, while the daily average was 3,003 kilowatt hours in 2005 compared to 2,293 in 2006, or a 24 percent reduction.
Payback was 1.1 years on the project in the facility, which includes 120,000 square feet of warehouse space and another 15,000 square feet of office space. Return on investment was 92 percent. The retrofit was eligible for nearly $26,400 in rebates from Southern California Edison Co.
Don Artaserse, VP and CFO at McDonald Packaging, said that the result was close to the projections and that the quality of light clearly was an improvement. “The lighting is much better than what we had before,” he said.
According to Lime Energy, the projected annual savings of approximately 316,000 kilowatt hours is the equivalent of removing 220 tons of carbon dioxide from the air. It also represents the amount of electricity required to power 26 average households for one year.
Lime Energy is one of the nation’s leading energy efficiency technology and engineering companies. For more information visit the Web site.
