LEDs Save City $46,000 a Year on Energy

Though the city of Glen Cove, New York has been an important and historical trading port dating back to the 1600’s, it now boasts an exciting new 21st century achievement to add to its history annals – a state-of-the-art LED lighting upgrade in its Brewster Street Parking Garage which has dramatically reduced the city’s energy consumption and positioned the waterside town as a model of energy efficiency and environmental responsibility throughout the New York region.

Concerned about the high energy consumption and excessive maintenance associated with the old high pressure sodium fixtures in their parking facility, officials sought a more energy-efficient and maintenance-free lighting option for the three-story structure. “They were constantly changing lamps and repairing fixtures in the garage,” confirms Joe Casalino, Vice President of Port Washington-based electrical distributor Duplex Electric, which supplied the new RAB LED lighting fixtures for the project. “In addition, a lot of the light output from the old fixtures was getting wasted on the ceiling.”

Following an analysis of their lighting options in November 2010, Glen Cove officials agreed on an upgrade using highly-efficient LED technology from industry leader RAB Lighting. The 264 aesthetically-pleasing, bronze fixtures installed in December 2010 incorporate two 13 Watt LED light engines in a fully shielded, full cutoff design which ensures that light output is efficiently focused downward to highlight people and objects in the space. The fixture’s durable aluminum exterior with tempered glass and double gasketing is able to withstand the extreme conditions associated with outdoor applications like parking garages, while the fixture’s LED light engine is rated for 50,000 hours of life, which will help ensure long operation and significantly reduce maintenance costs for the city.

Agrees Duplex Electric’s Casalino, “because the new RAB fixtures with LED technology provide such a high light level and direct the light downward so effectively, we were able to replace the garage’s previous 100 Watt fixtures with the RAB system consuming only 26 Watts, for a 77% energy savings. In addition, because of the long life of LED technology, the city should enjoy over five years of maintenance-free, 24/7 operation out of these fixtures, which will further save on material and labor costs and ensure a safer and more secure environment for visitors.”

RAB Lighting’s Nathan Drucker, Applications Engineering Manager for the Northvale, New Jersey-based lighting company, concurs that “RAB’s CLED2X13 fixtures were indeed a great solution for the Glen Cove Parking Garage in terms of their optical design, outstanding energy efficiency, long life, and high lumen output. Based on the city’s interest in lowering its energy consumption and costs, this fixture will reduce annual energy usage by over 240,000 kWh, delivering the city annual energy savings of more than $46,000 and driving a project payback of only one year.”

Happily for the city, and on top of the attractive financial performance the RAB
LED fixtures delivered all on their own, the project was also able to capitalize on a $250 rebate per fixture extended by local utility Long Island Power
(LIPA), a financial incentive which helped to offset the city’s up-front project costs by over $68,000. In terms of benefitting the environment, Glen Cove and LIPA spokespeople estimate that the lighting upgrade “will have the equivalent effect of eliminating over 307,661 pounds of CO2 from the air or avoiding the consumption of 15,840 gallons of gasoline by cars each year.”

Mike Paolillo, Supervisor of Glen Cove-based contractor S. Paolillo & Sons, Inc., was also pleased with the selection of the RAB fixtures for this project. “It was an easy fixture to install and fit the specs of the project well,” he says. “The whole installation went very quickly and smoothly, which ensured the completion of the project within the deadline for the utility rebate.”

Seeing the impressive lighting performance and quick project payback and hearing positive feedback from city residents pleases no one more than Glen Cove Mayor Ralph Suozzi, who championed the upgrade project. “We’re delighted with the RAB fixtures, which delivered a much brighter and whiter light to the parking garage than the previous technology while reducing energy consumption and costs by 77%,” Suozzi says. “Overall, this project represented a great partnership between government, industry, and our local utility. We’re excited to have reduced our carbon footprint, removed strain from the power grid, created jobs, reduced cost to taxpayers, and decreased maintenance costs due to the long life and durability of the LED technology. At the end of the day,” Suozzi concludes, “everybody wins.”