Project Profiles: Educational Facilities

Renton School District, Renton, Wash.

Retrofit Team

LIGHTING INSTALLER: Renton School District facility staff, Renton

Materials

The existing exterior lighting was beyond its useful life, and lighting levels were grossly inadequate. The outdated and inefficient exterior wall packs were metal-halide fixtures with wattage ranging from 90 to 400 watts. As a result of the heat of the high-wattage HID lamps, the fixtures’ polycarbonate lenses becamediscolored and compromised the light output. J. Stine, program manager at the Renton School District Energy Management Office, wanted to replace the old fixtures with a product that was energy efficient and manufactured by an established U.S. company.

“We had replaced the old HID fixtures in one of our middle schools in 2010,” he says. “Once we realized the energy and maintenance savings, we knew a district-wide upgrade would provide an impressive return on investment. We installed over 400 new exterior fixtures and, to date, they have exceeded our performance expectations.”

The district purchased 437 Laredo LED Architectural Wallpacks in three different units: 12.6W, 20.6W and 32/71W bi-level. The wallpacks’ “Quick Mount” adapter allows one-person installation without opening the fixture.

LED LIGHTING MANUFACTURER: Spaulding Lighting, a Hubbell Lighting brand

The Retrofit

Located southeast of Seattle, Renton School District encompasses 28 facilities, comprising 2.4 million square feet, serving 15,000 students. When the District Energy Management Office began looking for ways to reduce energy costs at the schools, the team realized that upgrading to LED lighting offered an ideal solution. Cautiously, the school district began a yearlong pilot project where it installed and tested the LED products of several national companies before choosing Spaulding Lighting products.

Before the upgrade project, the annual energy consumption was 215,647 kWh. After the new exterior LED fixtures were installed, energy consumption decreased to 39,027 kWh annually. That equates to an 82 percent reduction in energy consumption, saving approximately $15,000 annually at today’s electrical rates. Along with substantial energy savings, maintenance savings have been realized; the LEDs have a rated life of 50,000 hours compared to a rated life of 2,500 hours for the old fixtures.

PHOTO: BILL JOHNSON