Parking garages may seem to be interesting only to the select few, but in the realm of LED retrofit applications, garages and parking lots are seeing some of the hottest action. As a recent example: the Shops at Grand Avenue’s parking garage in Milwaukee, Wis., significantly cut its lighting maintenance costs, reduced its electricity consumption and improved its lighting quality with an LED lighting upgrade. Current Electric Co. of Brookfield performed the energy-efficient lighting retrofit, using Precision-Paragon’s VPL LED parking vaportight fixture.
The lot was originally lit with 986 metal halide luminaires, each consuming over 150W of electricity. The retrofit replaced these with LED units consuming just 51W per fixture. Replacing the metal halide fixtures reduced the facility’s lighting energy consumption by over 66%, according to Precision-Paragon (P2).
Not content to stop there, Current Electric and P2 collaborated on two more energy-saving strategies in the facility – adding occupancy sensors and daylight sensors. The occupancy sensors, installed on all 986 luminaires, dim the garage by 40% when it’s empty of pedestrians or moving vehicles. The daylight sensors were mounted on 450 fixtures in areas where natural light enters the structure during the day. When these sensors detect sufficient natural daylight in their area, they’ll turn off the fixture, saving energy and extending the fixture’s life.
The VPL’s efficacy of between 97 and 103 lumens per watt, combined with the daylight and occupancy sensors throughout the parking garage, is expected to save the facility over $134,000 in energy costs every year by saving 1,344,963 kWh.
“Lighting maintenance in parking garages can be difficult, and hazardous,” said Randy Breske, director of lighting business development at Current Electric. “The new lighting system we installed more than doubles the maintenance interval in the parking garage.”