MANCHESTER — A year ago, township officials placed a bet on what they believed was a sure thing. And as energy rates continue to rise, they are being shown to be smarter by the day.
A 6,400-square-foot garage used by the Public Works Department to repair police cars, dump trucks and other township equipment previously was lighted by dozens of energy-intensive fluorescent tube lights. But officials placed their money on "going green" and installed 25 tubular daylighting devices.
Now, the building's electric bill has plummeted, and the savings have begun to pile up.
"It's all natural sunlight, just about," said Stephen Stanziano, the township's public works director. "It's actually brighter in here."
The fixtures — known as tubular daylighting devices, or TDDs — capture natural sunlight on a building's roof and channel the light through an internally reflective tube. At ceiling level inside, a diffuser resembling a standard recessed lighting fixture spreads the sunlight evenly throughout the room.
The TDDs spread light more evenly, and thus more efficiently, than traditional skylights. They also filter out 99 percent of the sun's ultraviolet rays while emitting little to no excess heat.
The township installed 25 of the lights on top of the Route 70 garage in the Whiting section in September 2007 and has already seen results, Stanziano said.
"We had a third-party energy test, and in February we saved $400 for the month," he said. "And that's a month without a lot of sunlight."
The dome-shaped heads protruding, like a field of toadstools on the garage's roof, have the ability to gather sunlight from all angles, said Joe Veni, a township project engineer who spearheaded the daylighting initiative.
About $14,000 — a total that includes purchase and installation — was spent on the 25 tubes, Veni said.
He estimates savings on monthly electric bills will meet or exceed that amount by March 2010.
"It's cost-effective. It works, and it will pay back within a reasonable amount of time," said Mayor Michael Fressola.
Extremely overcast days can dampen the tubes' effectiveness, however, so a standard electric-powered lighting system remains in place as a backup. To minimize the amount of traditional lighting needed, Veni researched and installed a state-of-the art sensor system that controls the artificial light to ensure bulbs stay dark or dim when not needed.
The sensor system even knows when the garage is empty and will shut off electric lights until it senses occupants.
Giant Eagle Supermarkets
Author: Marc McKillop
In the summer of 2006, SolaDesign helped Giant Eagle Supermarkets design and install a tubular daylighting system for a new store in Altoona, PA. They were so pleased with the product that they have since specified the system into their corporate offices, GetGo convenience stores and many new ground-up supermarkets in Ohio. Below is an excerpt from an email that Marc McKillop, co-owner and manager of several area Giant Eagle stores, sent to SolaDesign, unsolicited. It details the retail sales increase and energy cost reductions that they have documented in their Altoona location over an older Pittsburgh store.
“I would be more than happy to help you guys out in any way we can. You are right it is absolutely the right thing to do for the environment but also from a business perspective. We have been able to reduce of our most common expenses…Please have anyone that might be interested in the system contact me.”
SALES
“…As for the sales it is really hard to tell what has lead to our 60% increase over [our Pittsburgh store]. Our location is far more convenient and has much better junior anchor stores to help bring customers to us…but I can say that customers do actually love the daylighting - it is a more natural and warmer feeling.”
While it is true that the Altoona store was brand new and included several improvements over their older store, if even 5% of that 60% increase was due to daylighting, Giant Eagle saw a full payback in a matter of months. Marc’s testimonial is one that we have seen with our own eyes, from our own client.
COST REDUCTION
“We have seen a tremendous savings in costs and customers and employees have loved the system. As I told Mike on the phone, if we were able to redesign our store now and knowing what we know we would have had 600 units with the daylighting system.
So far year to date cost per square foot:
Altoona Giant Eagle 649 = $1.61 new store [88,000 sq ft]
Altoona Giant Eagle 693 = $1.81 old store [66,000 sq ft]
Comparison Giant Eagle Store = $3.29 [88,000 sq ft]
Savings of $1.68 per sq ft with our daylighting system.
We are averaging around $20,000 monthly electric spending and the comparison store is averaging around a $24,000 monthly spend. Both locations had an actual electric read for the month of July and we saved over $9000 compared to the comparison store.”
Marc said that the store 693 was their old store. That store only had a 44,000 square foot sales area. The new store (649) has a 77,000 square foot sales floor, and since the sales floor is much more energy intensive there is only a $0.20/sq ft savings. The comparison Giant Eagle store has the same footprint and layout as their new store, but without daylighting leading to the $1.68/sq ft. He also said that the heat reclamation system was inadvertently turned on in the summer months, which made their air conditioning system run much more. They’ve since eliminated the use of auxiliary lighting on very sunny days, contrary to company policy. Because TDDs create virtually no heat gain, unlike incandescent, fluorescent or halide lighting, Giant Eagle has since seen even more savings due to reduced air conditioning usage, allowing them to downsize the air conditioning units in their new construction of other stores.
