Mar 6 2008
Lime Energy today announced it recently completed a lighting system retrofit project for ORCON Corporation of Union City, California. The retrofit project received $15,595 in energy efficiency grant funding from Pacific Gas and Electric Company to help offset the capital requirement and enabling ORCON to save nearly $55,000 annually from reduced energy costs. The entire project is expected to pay for itself through avoided utility costs in just over one year.
In addition to the hard dollar savings, the permanent reduction of 392,178 kilowatt-hours per year in energy use provides the following environmental benefits each year:
- 706,000 pounds of Carbon Dioxide - the leading cause of Global Warming
- 9,000 pounds of Sulfur Dioxide - the leading cause of Acid Rain
- 3,000 pounds of Nitric Dioxide - the leading cause of Smog and Acid Precipitation
- 61 passenger cars removed from the road this year.
"The new lights seem to have energized the workers. I have been here 20 years and I can't say enough good things about how this went, plus it was very economical with a fast payback," said Bill Fuson, Facilities Maintenance Manager at ORCON. "Lime Energy did a great job to do this during the off-shift as I had requested. They knocked it out in a remarkable timeline with only one small hiccup out of 400 fixtures. You just don't get contractors to do that sort of work this smoothly. I was very comfortable not being here when the work was done. We set up rules and guidelines, including safety and evacuation procedures; and Lime Energy's installation crew exceeded our expectations."
Bill has received several positive comments from employees on the floor. He has taken light measurements and says that now everywhere is between 40 and 50 foot-candles where before the retrofit, some areas were less than 20 and it seemed dark. Bill has made a calculation to show that the electricity consumption for lighting in the plant will be one-half of what it was before.
"This project came together very quickly because it made so much sense at this facility," said Dom Walterspiel, Senior Account Executive with the Lime Energy Western Region. "We at Lime Energy are proud of our accomplishment here and happy that we can meet the customer needs. At about $5,000 per month, the energy cost savings here are significant and it is to ORCON's credit that they made their decision in a timely manner so they could benefit from the new lighting and the savings sooner," concluded Mr. Walterspiel.