by Ann Withanee — December 16, 2011—While facilities executives are searching for ways to cut back use of electricity, some are faced with problems that require the use of lighting on full time basis — around the clock every day of the week. Such a situation heavily burdened a Texas parking garage. After meticulous research and testing, City officials solved the problem by contracting with Cooper Lighting to install LED luminaires, a solution that is successfully containing soaring electrical bills.
The parking garage at the City Hall in Austin, Texas, houses 750 parking spaces and must leave its lights on 24 hours a day, making for high energy usage and big electrical bills. After evaluating several manufacturers’ LED products, city officials chose LED luminaires from Cooper Lighting’s McGraw-Edison featured brand. By replacing approximately 425 175-watt metal halide fixtures with McGraw-Edison Concise LED Luminaires, the city is expected to reduce the wattage in the parking garage by 74 percent and save $46,000 annually in electricity costs.
The LED lighting replacement project was funded as part of a $7.5 million grant provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which was awarded to Austin Energy to increase the efficiency of municipal facilities in the City of Austin. Replacing the 175-watt fixtures with 53-watt LED fixtures, the parking garage should see a savings of 575,462 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year.
The McGraw-Edison Concise LED Luminaires feature patent-pending, modular LED LightBAR technology, which delivers uniform illumination to improve vehicular movement and pedestrian safety. The LED fixtures offer energy savings from 30 to 75 percent over standard H.I.D sources found in many applications today. The one-piece, die-cast aluminum rugged housing features heavy wall construction for superior heat transfer and reliable operation in -30°C to 40°C ambient conditions.
