Tom Lanzilotta, energy manager for Stony Brook University in New York State, discusses his campus' parking lot lighting project that retrofitted 14 campus lots with LEDs.
Tom Lanzilotta
Energy Manager
Stony Brook University in New York State
1. Briefly describe your university's LED parking lot project.
The parking lot LED lighting project involved retrofitting fixtures in 14 parking lots located on our west campus. The university replaced a total of 320 exterior metal halide fixtures at 250 watt each with energy efficient LED fixtures at 109 watts each. The replacement LED fixtures emit light that appears brighter to the eye, uses less than half the energy of the previous light fixtures, and offers savings in terms of energy and maintenance costs.
2. What was your role in the specification process for the project?
This project was a collaboration of departments within the university. The campus met a number of goals, including increasing parking lot light visibility and lowering utilities and lighting maintenance expenses. The project also helped the university with respect to compliance with a variety of New York State Executive Orders.
There were also some challenges getting the project of the ground. Given we changed to new lighting technology, we worked with the department of our Campus Planning Design and Construction to be certain the light levels met or exceeded our current standard. We also wanted to be certain the aesthetics were acceptable, and the manufacturer of the LEDs would stand by the quality and longevity of their product.
3. How did the project impact your staff's workload?
Since we used an external contractor for the purchase and installation, there was minimal impact on university staff workload.
4.How has the project benefited your staff from a maintenance perspective?
The life expectancy of the new LED lamps is approximately 25 years at 70 percent light output. We can now reduce the hours needed to verify the lights are operating properly, as well as the resources need to change the lamps. This will help focus our maintenance team on other projects and allow us to scale down our inventory of lamps and ballasts.
The project is estimated to save approximately 134,000 kilowatts annually in energy consumption
5. What are the next steps the university is taking to reduce energy use from lighting systems?
This past June, using external contractors, we started an energy efficiency project in our academic buildings. The majority of the project involves installing occupancy sensors and retrofitting approximately 50,000 light fixtures that have older T8 lamps and ballasts with high-efficiency extended-life products. We anticipate a payback from labor and energy savings of less than 7 years. In addition, using in-house staff, we have replaced over 800 incandescent and halogen lamps with LED technology.
posted: 9/8/2014
