Massachusetts Electric helps Raytheon Company save more than 80 percent on office lighting energy costs

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1 Massachusetts Electric helps Raytheon Company save more than 80 percent on office lighting energy costs Recent energy shortages in California show how quickly the balance can be tipped from surplus to shortage, resulting in calls for major capital expenditures for new power plants, and for increases in electricity rates. The financial case for energy conservation is compelling from both a utility and customer point of view. Consuming up to thirty per cent of the building s electricity, lighting is the line item that likely holds the biggest potential for major energy savings and improving an organization s financial position. While many utility industry observers believe the era of 50 percent plus reductions in lighting electricity usage is long past, new intelligent technologies are bringing those days back. The recent development of an intelligent fluorescent office lighting fixture that integrates comprehensive energy-saving controls into one easy-to-use product marks a major step forward. Ergolight, from lighting manufacturer Ledalite Architectural Products, was voted Energy Product of the year at Lightfair 2001, North America s premier lighting tradeshow. And with over 5,000 users across the country, Ergolight is now proven technology, having consistently delivered percent energy savings in projects installed throughout North America. Given this track record and the interesting interplay between the product s various control features, Massachusetts Electric and its parent company, National Grid, decided to conduct a thorough evaluation. Their focus was on the product s potential as an aggressive energy savings tool that the utilities could include as part of their incentive program.

Before we can provide incentives for an energy-saving product, we have to confirm that it does what it says it will do, said Francis Boucher, senior energy engineer at Mass Electric s business

2 Before we can provide incentives for an energy-saving product, we have to confirm that it does what it says it will do, said Francis Boucher, senior energy engineer at Mass Electric s business energy-efficiency services department. As a result of our evaluation, we can say with confidence that this product produces higher energy savings in the office environment than any previous generation of products we ve seen. Savings range up to and beyond 80 percent, which is an amazing feat. en office area at Raytheon Ergolight in waiting area Raytheon retrofit saving more than 80 percent One of the first Ergolight installations in New England was Raytheon s Building 200 in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. The facility is a two-story, 110,000 sq.ft. space with both partitioned workspaces and private offices, housing 450 employees. Building 200 was the first stage of a campus-wide retrofit that Raytheon undertook in conjunction with Massachusetts Electric. Ergolight, a workspace-specific lighting system, was ideal for the Raytheon project. One Ergolight suspended over each cubicle or desk became an employee s personal fixture. Its intelligent component integrated information technologies with on-board sensor controls to provide personal dimming, occupancy sensing, daylight harvesting, load shedding and scheduling control.

3 The early results have been remarkable! The new system at Raytheon is delivering lighting electricity savings of more than 80 percent. Other completed Ergolight installations at Raytheon sites are turning in similar savings levels. Given that lighting electricity costs comprise almost one-third of a commercial building s total electricity consumption, cutting 80 percent shows up on expense statements almost immediately. I m really impressed with the return on investment of these new fixtures. It s about two years, including the utility rebate, says Brian Dunn, controller at Raytheon s Electronics Systems Air/Missile Defense Systems (A/MDS) and the manager in charge of reviewing the company s retrofit cost and financial returns. Ergolights in open office area at Raytheon Tewkesbury facility. These are the types of savings levels that cause engineers and owners to be skeptical, notes Mass Electric s Boucher. Yet it s clear that the people working in these environments are extremely happy with the results. Our own postinstallation study in the Raytheon facility verifies that the savings projections are realistic. Tewksbury facility a typical lighting retrofit challenge Raytheon s Tewksbury facility is representative of the retrofit challenges faced by many utility customers and worth examining in more detail. Prior to the retrofit, the lighting system had a baseline combination of two-lamp and four-lamp 34W T12 fluorescent lamps in lensed fixtures that operated about 5,000 hours per

4 year with scheduling controls. For the retrofit, 697 of these fixtures were replaced with 503 Ergolights. Each 8x10 or 10x10 cubicle in open areas received one fixture containing three T8 fluorescent lamps, while 10x15 private offices received two. Aside from replacing the older, energy-inefficient T12s, the new system is able to capture unrealized energy savings through the built-in occupancy sensors. At unoccupied desks in open areas, these sensors slowly dim the two downlights to off after an employee leaves a cubicle, but the uplight remains on to provide ambient light. Wasting electricity to illuminate empty spaces is now a thing of the past. After-hours lighting control has also been improved with the retrofit. Before the Ergolight system was installed, after-hours users would call an extension and request a lighting schedule override for their area. The Ergolight system is programmed to reset the occupancy sensors over cubicles to dim and turn off both the downlights and the uplight at 5:30 p.m. At 6:30 the next weekday morning, the system turns the uplights on, and the occupancy sensors revert to controlling only the downlight. Therefore, the overnight lighting override is 100 percent automatic based on occupancy; whenever a workspace is occupied, the system delivers the user s preferred brightness level, day or night. The goal of the Ergolight technology is to focus on cutting electricity wastage and deliver lighting where and when it s needed, says Damon Wood, director of market development at Ledalite. The result is an aggressive energy savings program that is embraced by employees. The workspace-specific lighting concept is intriguing. Based on the strategy of putting fixtures strictly where people work, Raytheon avoided over-illuminating non-task areas. The uplighting from adjacent workspaces provides enough ambient lighting for most traffic areas between cubicles.

5 The concept is simple, notes Boucher. Put the light where it s needed when it s needed rather than making a generous level of light uniformly available through an entire occupied space on a fixed schedule. By integrating a variety of control technologies into the product, unnecessary power consumption is kept to a bare minimum while maintaining the lighting quality at a level staff are happy with. Aside from the savings, an appealing feature is the direct/indirect lighting (one lamp aimed up at the ceiling, two lamps aimed down), which provides the highest-quality lighting available for working in both computer and office environments. In addition, the personal dimming control has been well received by employees. This feature allows staff to use computer software to adjust the light levels over their own desks to suit their individual preferences. Employee response has been very positive, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by senior management. I ve heard from many of our Tewksbury employees, and they like the ability to control lighting levels within their workspace, said Bob Filosa, the engineering director for Raytheon s Electronics Systems A/MDS business unit. Regardless of whether we can quantify the productivity increases, we ve achieved tremendous energy savings to date, which has helped Ergolight in private office

6 improve morale and the bottom line. Mass Electric s Boucher noted the dimming feature helped speed acceptance of the new lighting by Raytheon staff. Aside from providing long-term staff satisfaction benefits, it also appears from the Raytheon case that personal dimming is a valuable feature for employees, and this helps smooth the lighting changeover, said Boucher. Occupancy sensors and personal dimming had the biggest impact Studies of the Tewksbury installation show that occupancy sensors delivered the most savings of the control features. While the personal dimming contributes a lower level of savings, there s little doubt this is a staff favorite. Most employees prefer the lower lighting levels and dim their lighting by more than 25 percent to reach the setting most comfortable for them. Although personal dimming delivers a small portion of the overall energy savings, its importance should not be underestimated. A recent study conducted by the National Research Council in Canada on office lighting level preferences explains why. Researchers found that every person has a unique preference for how they want their desktop to be illuminated. They also found that these preferences vary widely. Due to this variation, the study found that today s construction standard of fixing the illumination levels at one particular setting, no matter where it is, will leave at least half of the staff uncomfortable with light levels. The study concluded that the best way to maximize the benefits would be to provide employees with individual control over their lighting. [ Lighting Quality Recommendations for VDT Offices: A New Method of Derivation. Dr. Guy Newsham, Dr. Jennifer Veitch, Research Officers, Institute for Research in Construction, National Research Council of Canada.]

7 How does this impact monetarily on the organization? Personal control is important because employee salaries are more than 100 times the value of electricity consumption. Therefore, only a small marginal gain in employee comfort and productivity is needed to deliver valuable productivity benefits to the organization as a whole. For example, just a one percent permanent gain in productivity will be worth more than the year s office lighting electricity bill, and will accrue to the company year after year. Most importantly, the Raytheon case study is providing confirmation that new technologies and products like Ergolight can now deliver impressive energy savings that can exceed 80 percent. Clearly, the new technologies are creating additional opportunities to reduce office lighting electricity consumption levels well beyond what has already occurred over the past twelve years of our demand-side management programs, concludes Boucher. There s little doubt we are now in a whole new era of office lighting energy conservation an advance that has come at just the right time. End Raytheon Tewksbury Building 200 Retrofit Summary Old system: 697 two- and four-lamp T12 troffers covering 65,000 square feet of illuminated office space. New system: 503 fully controllable, three-lamp T8 Ergolights from Ledalite. Energy control features: personal dimming, occupancy sensing, daylight dimming, load shedding and scheduling control. Illumination at the desktop: Pre-retrofit: footcandles; Post-retrofit: footcandles (at full output). Illumination in circulation areas: fc. Average monthly energy savings: 83 percent (July 2001).

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