Warehouse Relight - Cutting Lighting Expenses by over 50%
Retail markets are fiercely competitive. Business models are driven by high volumes and low margins. Every dollar in reduced operating expenses is significant. Lighting a huge warehouse is expensive - cutting the energy required to light a large warehouse is saving one of our customers over $10,000/month.

This customer had over 900 HID lights, mostly 400 Watt fixtures with some 1,000 Watt fixtures in the largest aisles. Over a four week period, these fixtures were replaced with 4-lamp and 8-lamp T5 linear fluorescent fixtures. Each 400 Watt HID that was replaced cut energy consumption by 47%; replacing the 1,000 Watt fixtures with 8-lamp T5 fixtures reduced energy consumption by 57%. Additionally, all the fixtures in the warehouse were fitted with occupancy sensors, further reducing energy usage in the busiest rows by about 25% and up to 90% in the rows where specialty and infrequently stocked items were located.

Cutting energy consumption is great but not if it results in hidden costs such as lowered productivity. Numerous studies have shown that light levels significantly impact worker moral, productivity and retention. Light levels measured in the aisles where warehouse workers spend much of their day storing and retrieving furniture were measured with a handheld light meter between 3 and 7 footcandles before the retrofit. Photometric studies projected light measurements averaging 12.7 footcandles in the aisles. We were pleased to measure between 15 and 20 footcandles in the aisles after the retrofit - a 100-200% gain in light while we reduced the energy by 50%.