Case Study
Flexible Energy Efficiency Program Reaps Massive Energy Savings
ComEd Smart Ideas for Your Business Incentive Program
Enables Industrial Facility to Fast-Track Lighting Upgrade,
Saving Over 1.2 M kWh Annually
®
As energy efficiency plays an increasingly important role in power management
strategies for the nation’s utility companies, incentive programs encouraging businesses
to save energy are gaining in importance. This is good news for the nation’s industrial
facilities, as upwards of 38% of their annual budgets are consumed by lighting, making
it a rich target for energy efficiency savings and incentive programs.
Yet the level of energy savings derived from lighting upgrades vary widely by manufacturer
and type, making a “one size fits all” approach to incentive programs ineffective
Best-practice utility companies, like ComEd, cater to this variety by offering a range —
from prescriptive, per-fixture incentives to custom incentives — designed to promote
maximum kWh savings. ComEd’s industrial customers are taking advantage of this
program to upgrade their lighting, as this represents the low-hanging fruit of energy
efficiency projects, with a quick payback and high return on investment.
C om E d CUSTOMER , SILVER BEAUTY, EVALUATES ITS OPTIONS
The management team at Silver Beauty, a warehousing management company that builds
and leases warehouses in the Chicago area, faced a dilemma. The metal halide lighting
in its 177,413-square foot facility,Warehouse #5, consumed too much energy and had
developed a persistent “hum” that was increasing in intensity to the displeasure of its
tenant. Operating under the principle that well-designed facilities result in satisfied,
long-term tenants, Silver Beauty decided to replace the lighting in Warehouse #5 —
a facility with year-round, 24 x 7 operations.
As the management team began investigating its lighting options, they also looked
into various ways of defraying some of the upfront costs associated with the lighting
upgrade. Working with energy efficiency consultant, Green Light Midwest, the effort
included reaching out to ComEd, an Illinois-based unit of Exelon Corporation, one of
the nation's largest electric utility companies. What the team learned about ComEd’s
award-winning “Smart Ideas for Your Business” energy efficiency incentive program
captured their interest and strengthened their commitment to the project.
INCENTIVE PROGRAM SUPPORTS HIGH EFFICIENCY LIGHTING DECISIONS
At ComEd, the most commonly utilized form of incentive for lighting, prescriptive
incentives, was not a good fit for Silver Beauty, as it effectively under-valued the
savings attainable for the intelligent lighting system they were considering. Prescriptive
incentives are paid out on a per fixture basis and are targeted at lighting solutions that
deliver strictly wattage-based savings. Alternatively, custom incentives are designed
for projects that deliver energy savings ‘far above and beyond’ commonly available
alternatives. For projects that meet the rigorous requirements, custom incentives
are paid out on a ‘per-kWh-saved’ basis.
“The Digital Lumens system that Silver Beauty was considering met all the criteria
we look for in a custom incentive offering,” said Randolph Harding, Energy
Efficiency Engineer for the Smart Ideas for Your Business team at ComEd. “With a
documented payback period of less than two years, it was well within our one- to
seven-year payback requirement; offered energy savings that comfortably exceeded
the 70% efficiency improvement the program requires; and, as importantly,
ComEd
UTILITY PARTNER
ComEd
PROGRAM
®
Smart Ideas for Your Business
INDUSTRIAL CUSTOMER
Silver Beauty
LOCATION
Chicago, IL
FACILITY SIZE
177,413 ft 2
OPERATIONAL SCHEDULE
24 x 7
ENVIRONMENT
Ambient Warehouse
PREVIOUS LIGHTING SOLUTION
1000-watt Metal Halide
PROJECT TYPE
Lighting Retrofit
INCENTIVE TYPE
Custom — $/kWh Saved
ANNUAL kWh SAVINGS
1,237,262
Figure 1: Using the integrated LightRules reporting
capabilities, the Silver Beauty management team
has detailed information on lighting use, such as
kWh used and occupancy patterns.
ComEd — Silver Beauty
was listed on the Design Light Consortium (DLC) Qualified
Product List (QPL) — a must-have for LED project consideration”
(see the next page for additional details about the Design Light
Consortium Qualified Product List).
ComEd's custom incentives are designed for
projects that deliver energy savings ‘far above
and beyond’ commonly available alternatives
At $.05 per kWh-saved, the custom incentive would defray up
to 50% of the up-front costs associated with the LED-based
system, making the decision to move forward with the project
just that much easier. Installed in mid-2012, the Intelligent
Lighting System has reduced the facility’s annual lighting budget
by 92%, from $78,000 to just under $6,000, while reducing
ComEd’s industrial load by 1,237,262 kWh annually.
REQUIREMENTS FOR A CUSTOM INCENTIVE
With a level of control over lighting that is unmatched within
the lighting industry, the Digital Lumens system easily met all
the criteria necessary to qualify for a custom incentive. The
next step, defining the parameters of the incentive, followed a
well-established process at ComEd that is used for all qualifying
lighting technologies. It involved:
• Establishing a baseline. Working with facility engineers and
Green Light Midwest, a lighting audit was conducted to gather
baseline information about the facility’s lighting use. The audit
was then used to estimate the amount of energy consumed
by the existing lighting fixtures within Warehouse #5 since,
like most facilities, lighting was not separately metered.
Because Silver Beauty’s facility used 1000-watt metal halide
fixtures operating on a 24 x 7 basis, a reasonably accurate
baseline value was easy to determine. In fact, the Silver Beauty/
Green Light team had previously estimated its baseline usage
via the Digital Lumens’ Energy Savings Calculator, a tool that
combines industry-specific knowledge with facility-specific
data (e.g., type of facility and size, fixture type and wattage,
operating hours…) to calculate potential upgrade savings
based on current costs.
• Estimating the savings. For planning purposes, it was
important to estimate the dollar value of incentives that
would be granted upon installation of the new system.
These calculations take into account the expected changes
in lighting use based on conventional factors, such as facility
size and fixture wattage, as well as behavioral factors, such as
workspace usage and occupancy patterns.
Through the Energy Savings Calculator, Silver Beauty already
had a rough estimate of the potential energy savings attainable
with the Intelligent Lighting System. For ComEd, the Energy
Savings Calculator provided an important data point and
comparative tool for establishing the estimated value of the
Silver Beauty energy efficiency incentive.
Case Study
Once the custom incentive was approved and the lighting
system installed, energy savings had to be validated before
payout, which normally occurs within 60 to 90 days of
installation. Naturally, the higher the energy savings, the better
the incentive for Silver Beauty.
SILVER BEAUTY
LIGHTING ENERGY COSTS
Intelligent Lighting System Installed
$7000
$6000
$5000
$4000
$3000
$2000
$1000
March
April
May
June
Figure 2: Lighting energy costs at Silver Beauty before and after
installation of the Digital Lumens Intelligent Lighting System.
VALIDATING THE SAVINGS
To validate the energy savings, ComEd used one month’s worth
of actual usage data to estimate the annual savings. While this
is normally done by tracking billing changes and comparing it
to the baseline estimate, the validation process for the Silver
Beauty incentive was much easier and, importantly, completely
accurate. This is due to the metering and controls within the
Digital Lumens system, which provides detailed usage reports on
a facility’s lighting use, such as kWh used and occupancy rates,
for any timeframe needed.
“The incentive program is a significant component of ComEd’s
power management strategy, so once we grant a custom
incentive, it is important that the promised energy savings be
realized,” said Mr. Harding. “So not only do we need to verify
energy savings for our own purposes of creating and issuing the
incentive, we also need to be confident that the project savings
are delivered and can be independently verified by a thirdparty evaluator. Because the energy data in the Digital Lumens
LightRules reports match the energy consumption recorded
on our own meter, we’re confident that this will be the case.”
In fact, a third-party evaluator independently validated the
savings at Silver Beauty, which included placing several dozen
sensors around the warehouse to confirm lighting usage
and levels.
ComEd — Silver Beauty
EXTRAORDINARY ENERGY SAVINGS SURPRISE Com E d
In the month following the installation of the Intelligent Lighting
System, Silver Beauty’s energy bill abruptly dropped. In fact,the
savings were so extraordinary that ComEd assumed the meter
at Warehouse #5 had malfunctioned and sent a repairman out to
visually inspect — and presumably repair — the meter. Amused
by the situation, Gary Raymond, Managing Partner for Silver
Beauty, proudly demonstrated his new lighting system and the
detailed usage reports that documented the 92% energy savings.
These energy savings were the result of many efficiencies,
both large and small, enabled by the Intelligent Lighting System,
including:
• Occupancy sensing. Unlike LEDs, metal-halide lights cannot
cycle on and off as forklift operators pass through a work area,
forcing lighting to be on 100% of the time. With its built-in
occupancy sensors, the Intelligent Lighting System achieved an
additional 70% savings over wattage alone by instantaneously
raising illumination from security to working levels only
when needed.
(As Mr. Raymond discovered in one of his other facilities,
Warehouse #6, motion-sensor-controlled T5 fluorescents
were not a viable alternative, as frequently cycling them on and
off to save energy seriously degraded lamp life. Furthermore,
they could not cycle quickly enough in cold environments to
provide the necessary levels of illumination, even when using
cold-weather ballasts.)
• Daylight harvesting. Skylights provide up to 40% of the
lighting needed to illuminate the facility. Photo sensors
integrated into each fixture assess available ambient light,
enabling each fixture to continually adjust lumen output to
meet the facility’s 20 foot-candle target.
• Dimming and task tuning. Dimming and occupancy settings
can be modified easily to address changing operational needs.
When a space is unoccupied in Warehouse #5, for example,
lighting is dimmed to 30% in well-traveled aisles, and 10% to
15% elsewhere for security purposes.
• Integrated LightRules Intelligence. Provides the
information the management needs to continuously optimize
how lighting is used within the facility to safely achieve
additional energy savings. Includes the ability to evaluate
“what-if” scenarios.
• Wattage-based savings. With an equivalent foot-candle
reading — three feet off the floor — the previous metal
halide lamps consumed 149,040 watts of electricity each hour
versus 31,740 for the Digital Lumens 18,000-lumen fixture.
“When we first looked at the request for an incentive, the
claimed savings was higher than we generally see in most
occupancy sensor applications,” said Mr. Harding. “Because the
system had a reliable M&V analysis tool, typical to advanced
lighting systems, we were able to confirm the savings in
our analysis.” Thanks to a smartly designed incentive program
and the prudent property manager whom it helped to install
an intelligent LED system, ComEd gained a single source of
significant kWh reduction and a happy, satisfied customer.
Case Study
COMED: INVESTING IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY
ComEd’s Smart Ideas for Your Business ® program provides
a range of incentives to businesses investing in energy efficiency.
Available to all ComEd commercial and industrial customers,
these incentives are helping to defray up to 50% of the up-front
costs associated with projects that range from more efficient
lighting and refrigeration systems to industrial equipment and
data centers. The Smart Ideas program has been recognized
by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy for
its leading design and practice in energy efficiency programs by
reducing energy costs, improving the environment, and boosting
the economy.
For more information about ComEd’s Smart Ideas for Your
Business programs, visit www.ComEd.com/BizIncentives. Smart
Ideas is funded by ComEd customers in compliance with Illinois
Public Act 95-0481.
ABOUT THE DESIGNLIGHTS CONSORTIUM'S QPL
The DesignLights Consortium (DLC) is a collaboration of utility
companies and regional energy efficiency organizations, with
a mission to ensure that high-quality, energy-efficient lighting
becomes commonplace in all areas of the commercial lighting
market. Only products that meet specific criteria, which must
be independently tested and verified, are added to its Qualified
Product List (QPL) and therefore eligible for incentives in
participating programs.
The QPL is a free tool available to utilities that are processing
incentive applications for industrial and commercial customers
who use products that are not currently covered by the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Energy Star ™ program. In 2011, Digital
Lumens’ Intelligent Light System became the first product to be
approved by the DesignLights™ Consortium (DLC) for its newly
created High-Bay Aisle category. To learn more or to download
the DLC’s QPL, go to designlights.org.
www.digitallumens.com
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Boston, MA 02210
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All Rights Reserved © 2012-2013
Digital Lumens Incorporated
Subject to change without notice.
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