With thousands of residence hall rooms and suites, common recreation areas and computer labs open around the clock at North Carolina State University’s Raleigh campus, finding ways to reduce energy consumption and operating costs is always top of mind
July 7, 2014 - Lighting
Maintenance and engineering managers at universities are always looking for ways to curtail energy costs, and installing wireless lighting control systems is becoming an increasingly popular option to reduce energy use at institutional and commercial facilities.
With thousands of residence hall rooms and suites, common recreation areas and computer labs open around the clock at North Carolina State University’s Raleigh campus, finding ways to reduce energy consumption and operating costs is always top of mind.
As part of an ongoing campus-wide sustainability effort, the university turned to Cree Lighting’s CR22™ LED architectural troffers equipped with SmartCast™ Technology on the first floor of North Hall, located on main campus. The motion sensing turns lights out when spaces are empty, and turns on LED lighting only when needed.
“When overseeing dozens of campus housing environments, it is critical to keep expenses to a minimum,” says Pete Fraccaroli, facilities manager of campus life. “Fixtures that turn off automatically guarantee we are saving energy when students are away.”
The hall also benefits from the daylight-harvesting feature of the sensors, allowing fixtures to detect extra daylight and adjust output as necessary to maintain consistent light levels.
“The daylight sensing feature helps make sure we’re considering the light coming in from outside and are only using the amount of light from the fixtures that we need,” says Mark Sorrell, head electrician with the campus life department. “The consistency and quality of the light we’re seeing is very impressive.”
Maintenance cost savings is a major benefit of switching any fixture to the LED lighting, which provides longer lasting light and reduces the amount of time and money spent on replacing lamps. With the OneButton™ Setup, the technology simplifies the configuration process commonly found with traditional lighting controls.
“One of the biggest bonuses to using these fixtures with SmartCast™ Technology is the time we’re saving with installation and maintenance,” Sorrell says. “Also, the OneButton Setup of the controls system was a tremendous feature. It’s simple to configure, and very impressive.”
