Duke Energy, Gibson Plant
Despite being an energy company themselves, Duke Energy was dealing with a lighting problem. Their system was costly, slow, and even dangerous. Here's what they did to fix the problem.
kWh reduced energy consumption annually
Prevented pounds of carbon dioxide emissions annually
Forecasted total savings per year
Background
Duke Energy makes life better for millions of people every day by providing electric and gas services in a sustainable way; it’s affordable, reliable, and clean. Duke is the largest electric power holding company in the United States, supplying and delivering energy to approximately 7.2 million U.S. customers. The Gibson Plant is the largest coal-fired plant in the US and has a 3.145 megawatt capacity.
Situation
Despite being the largest coal-fired plant in Duke Energy’s holdings, the Gibson Plant’s lighting system was outdated and dangerous. The lighting in the plant was high-pressure sodium HID technology which output yellow light, was slow to start or re-strike when hot and required new bulbs every 15,000-30,000 hours. Expensive, hot, dangerous, and…well…old. With a strong focus on employee safety, Duke knew they needed to improve this lighting system. They were looking for a system that could provide an improved working environment, lower maintenance costs, and energy savings.
Solution
Eco Engineering started by auditing the 300,000-square-foot area of the facility. The audit revealed a difficult situation; the area was a high-temperature environment (ambient up to 55c for some areas), with damp & wet locations, and high amounts of coal dust in the air. These are all ingredients for a perfect storm, and we knew that our design had to precisely account for each of these factors. As a result, we started by selecting LED fixtures with ratings for wet locations and that had various Classes of “Hazardous Location” ratings. The LED fixtures have multiple “drivers” (power sources), ensuring that the lights will still produce light even in the rarest failure. These fixtures also produce white light, which offers much better visibility and improves safety conditions. Finally, the new fixtures are “instant-on,” and they don’t require the 20-40 minute “hot re-strike” delay.
Additionally, many of the locations within the facility are difficult to access, as a result, the new LED light fixtures used in this project have fixtures have an unprecedented 10-year warranty, thus eliminating the ongoing maintenance/servicing costs of the existing lighting system. Beyond that, the optimized, engineering design of the system allowed Duke Energy to use fewer fixtures in some areas.
Energy Savings
Duke Energy’s lighting project came with a myriad of benefits, from improved energy savings to reduced carbon emissions.
- Forecasted annual consumption savings: 623,816 kW per year
- Prevented the emission of 957,574 lbs of carbon dioxide per year
Incentives
While the measured saving incentives for this project are clear, the improved safety for Duke’s employees, the quality and safety of the system, and the unprecedented 10-year warranty for this project are incentives that are much harder to quantify.
- Forecasted Energy Expenses: $63,385 savings per year