Background

JBG Companies is an active investor, owner, and developer in the Washington DC metropolitan area’s real estate market – one of the most dynamic markets in the world. Their diverse portfolio encompasses millions of square feet of office, residential, hotel, and retail spaces, and includes many of the region’s most distinguished properties. JBG’s sustainability efforts are centered around creating value through the strategic design, development and management of properties that result in energy efficiency, resource conservation, and waste reduction.

Situation

JBG links sustainability to the core business of creating and preserving real estate values. The Renaissance Arlington Capital View, which opened in 2011, is a 300-room, full-service hotel located in the heart of Crystal City’s dining and business district in Arlington, Virginia. The hotel is Gold LEED-certified and boasts award-winning architecture inspired by motion and enhanced light. Despite the impressive energy efficiency of the property itself, the property’s parking garage needed to upgrade the outdated lighting system. This would not only yield operating savings with a direct impact on real estate value, but it would also add to the significant environmental impact JBG deems a priority.

Solution

The energy efficient lighting project incorporated new LED canopy fixtures to replace more than 270 metal halide fixtures. Additionally, almost 100 four foot fluorescent fixtures were replaced with new reduced wattage T8 lamps and electronic ballasts. LED wall packs were installed on the parking ramps and the lighting for the entire garage facility was standardized to maximize energy savings and reduce maintenance costs. Careful design and planning was undertaken to account for the traditional challenges associated with a lighting retrofit in an indoor parking facility – insulated ceilings, mechanical rooms, ancillary spaces, loading docks and the need to work around the potential issues of reduced parking capacity during installation.

Both the design/audit and implementation phases were conducted by Eco Engineering.

Background

One of America’s largest municipalities, the city of Cincinnati is steeped in tradition and history dating back to the 1790s. The city is home to some of the most unique architecture in the country, and preservation has long been a Cincinnati hallmark. In recent years, Cincinnati has turned to using modern technology to improve the overall community.

Situation

A community-wide green initiative was endorsed by the city council and a comprehensive contract was awarded to Honeywell Energy Services to design and implement energy savings projects among city-owned properties. Outdoor lighting, especially street lighting, was quickly identified as a significant opportunity to save energy, and with it came the potential to reduce city maintenance expenses. Beyond that, improved lighting quality also carried strong safety implications for the community.

Solution

Honeywell partnered with Eco Engineering to audit, design, and implement the outdoor lighting system. We retrofitted nearly 50 different types of outdoor lamps, using only 12, standardized LED technologies. This project included developing customized street lamps and components to fit historical, antique, and decorative fixtures throughout the city. The lighting project spanned parks, recreation centers, and overpass/underpass lighting. This aspect presented a notable challenge given that many of the spaces that needed new lighting systems were “always on,” and implementations needed to cater to that environment.

The LED solution deployed lamps rated for over 100,000 hours of use, with 10-year warranties that guaranteed enhanced brightness and more consistent performance from street lights over a longer period of time. The resulting maintenance savings were significant.

Background

Covington Independent Public Schools (CIPS) was the first district in Kentucky to exercise the new Kentucky Educational Development Cooperative (KEDC) Price Contract. This cooperative allows Kentucky schools to find the best partners to implement their comprehensive energy efficiency programs through a transparent, competitive selection process that guarantees the price of the project. CIPS awarded their multimillion-dollar project to Performance Services, an energy services company (ESCO) based in Indiana.

Situation

As Covington Independent Public Schools faced ever-increasing budget cuts, they had to find new ways to reduce their spending, and one of the easiest ways for them to reduce their spending was to improve their energy efficiency. This objective created a two-fold problem:

• First, they needed to find an energy-savings solution that was robust enough to meet their budgetary goals.
• Second, they wanted a system that would require very little maintenance and could be operated by a small maintenance team

With their requirements in hand, CIPS and Performance Services got to work, and they started by enlisting Eco Engineering to tackle energy waste in their lighting systems.

The Solution

Eco Engineering audited, designed, and implemented a lighting plan that could meet the very specific criteria for their energy efficiency requirements. The design had three primary components.

• LED lights: Eco Engineering incorporated LED interior fixtures in multiple locations, including primary and secondary schools, administrative facilities, and the vocational center. These LED retrofits allowed them to substantially reduce their energy consumption.
• Occupancy sensors: Next, they put occupancy sensors in bathrooms, hallways, conference rooms, and cafeterias. These sensors automatically shut off the lighting when the space was unoccupied, ensuring that the building was not wasting energy by lighting empty rooms.
• Outdoor lighting: Finally, Eco Engineering addressed the exterior lighting throughout the district. This aspect of the project not only improved the energy efficiency of their outdoor lighting system, but it also improved the safety for CIPS students and faculty.

Eco Engineering was proud to partner with Performance Services to deliver high-quality results that reduced energy consumption, improved safety, and lowered maintenance costs for Covington Independent Public Schools.

Background

Adidas is working hard to find new and better ways to reduce their carbon footprint. As a result, they have made major investments to improving the energy efficiency of their facilities and buildings. Understandably, after finding success with lighting projects in many of their facilities, they wanted even more.

Situation

Most people know Adidas as a sporting goods and apparel company, but what they don’t know is that in the background, Adidas is driving their business toward sustainability and energy efficiency. Adidas has taken on several projects to improve the energy efficiency of their lighting systems throughout many of their facilities. After seeing tremendous success with these projects, Adidas was interested in doing even more. They wanted to implement new lighting technologies that would help them continue to reduce their carbon footprint while also improving the lighting within their facilities. They decided to kick this project off in their Brantford, Ontario facility, with the aim to improve the energy efficiency, working conditions, and safety and security of the facility, and they came to Eco Engineering to get the job done.

Solution

Eco Engineering designed and implemented the primary solution for this lighting project, LED high bay fixtures. These fixtures are not only energy efficient, but they are designed to better distribute light at a lower operating cost while also utilizing advanced lighting control with wireless intelligent sensors. These unique sensors used data to help create optimized light profiles for various locations throughout the facility. They captured lighting, energy, and facility data and sent it to a central control module. This model was then used to interpret the data and create specific light profiles for each fixture in each work area. Additionally, the system was connected to the network, allowing for local and remote access to alter the lighting and energy profiles. Once the installation was complete, Eco Engineering trained the staff on the lighting control system and profiles.

Background

Brookfield Properties, a fully integrated, global real estate company, renovated The Short Pump Town Center, a premier open-air shopping mall located in the West End area of Richmond, Virginia. The updated center offers more than 140 stores and restaurants, and was designed to be a “community within a community.” The entire mall is pedestrian-friendly, featuring lush landscaping, heated pavilions, beautiful fountains, intimate seating areas, and even play areas for children. Brookfield Properties wanted to make sure that The Short Pump Town Center was the type of place that everyone in the community could safely enjoy.

Situation

Given the purpose for The Short Pump Town Center, it was important to Brookfield Properties to ensure that the mall was as safe in the evening as it was during the day. However, safety wasn’t the only priority, it was also important to improve the night-time aesthetics of the center. Brookfield Properties needed to incorporate an upgraded parking lot lighting solution that would lower energy costs, reduce maintenance costs, and improve light output to ensure customer safety. They came to Eco Engineering to help.

Solution

Eco Engineering performed the design and implementation for Brookfield Properties’ new parking lot lighting system. The new system features LED fixtures which significantly improved the photometric light distribution compared to the existing system. Prior to the upgrade, the parking lot at The Short Pump Town Center contained 137 parking lot light poles, each with four HID fixtures. Eco Engineering replaced each HED fixture with two, new LED fixtures. Additionally, the design allowed each new light fixture to be intelligently controlled. This meant that each fixture on a single pole could be set to operate at a different time, for example, one could be on during the operating hours of the center, while the other would operate only during off-hours from midnight until dawn. The controlled functionality of this system both maximizes energy savings and extends the life of the fixtures.

Background

Bunzl Distribution USA, Inc., provides food packaging, disposable supplies, cleaning, and safety products to food processors, supermarkets, non-food retailers, convenience stores, and more. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Bunzl Distribution is the largest division of Bunzl plc, an international distribution and outsourcing group headquartered in London. Bunzl Distribution owns and operates more than 100 warehouses that serve all 50 states and Puerto Rico, as well as Canada, the Caribbean, and parts of Mexico.

Situation

Bunzl found that their Groveport, Ohio location was producing considerably higher energy bills than many of the other similarly-sized facilities in the US. After some inspection, they discovered that the Groveport facility, which is largely warehouse space, was using fluorescent light fixtures that were not only expensive to operate, but were also providing insufficient lighting in many of the areas where they were used. Given that the Groveport facility is largely warehouse space, Bunzl needed to find a reasonable solution for their application. The solution needed to provide excellent, energy-efficient lighting while still keeping in mind that many of the areas within the warehouse would not need to be constantly lit throughout the day.

Solution

For this project, Eco Engineering designed and implemented a lighting system that used the existing light fixtures and updated them with new LED lamps and drivers as part of a retrofit system. Occupancy sensors were also deployed to further enhance the energy savings by using the LED technology only as needed. The new lamps and drivers provide a brighter and safer workspace.

Background

The Dalton Convention Center, in Dalton, Georgia, is a multi-use regional facility. It features elegant ballrooms, versatile meeting rooms, and a lecture hall, as well as the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Dalton Convention Center even includes the Mashburn Arena, home court of the 2015 NAIA Champion Dalton State Roadrunners men’s basketball team.

Situation

The Dalton Convention Center was operating with incredibly outdated lighting technology, and the impact was starting to show. Their bookings started to drop, and they began hearing complaints from their patrons about buzzing ballasts, flickering lights, and dimmer issues. The problems weren’t localized to one section of the convention center – they prevailed throughout the entire facility, including the arena. In fact, the light quality in the arena was so poor that it was insufficient by TV broadcasting standards. In addition to the mechanical issues, energy costs for this system were high and system maintenance was significant.

Solution

To help Dalton Convention Center address this large undertaking, Eco Engineering designed and implemented a three-phase approach. This approach was based on comprehensive engineering-grade audits of the arena, banquet halls, and meeting spaces. The first phase addressed the meeting spaces. They were converted to reduced-wattage LED fixtures with improved color rendering. Eco Engineering connected the fixtures to occupancy sensors, dimmer controls, and a complete data dashboard to facilitate metered savings. Once the meeting rooms were complete, the banquet halls and arena soon followed.

The control panels for each of these lighting systems not only allowed for verification of energy savings, but they also enabled the pre-selection of up to a dozen different “scenes” for occasion-based lighting effects. The scenes were accessible by any internet-enabled device, allowing convention center personnel to address lighting throughout the center remotely. By the time the project was complete, the new lighting system quadrupled the light output at less than half the energy.

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.

Background

Duke Realty Corporation (NYSE:DRE) owns and operates approximately 139 million rentable square feet of industrial and office assets, including medical space, in 18 major U.S. cities. As a leader in energy management strategies for the facilities industry, Duke has implemented energy efficiency programs across more than one-third of the firm’s 300+ office buildings.

Situation

The Towers of Kenwood, a multi-use office complex located in Cincinnati, had previously undergone basic lighting retrofits involving newer technologies. However, despite the relatively modern lighting system, Duke’s financial analysis showed that there was even more room for improvement. By implementing lighting controls, more efficient LED fixtures, and standardizing lamp types, The Towers of Kenwood would significantly reduce energy consumption and operating costs.

Solution

Eco Engineering put together a plan and financial projections based on a detailed, engineering-grade audit of the office complex. Both the design and the installation of this project faced two major hurdles:

First, the project had to account for highly customized, multiple-tenant needs related to lighting.

Second, within the Towers, there were sensitive areas, like stock trading floors or 24/7 radio stations – these were difficult to access.

We started this project by planning for those logistical challenges in the beginning. Next, we used energy efficient lighting throughout most of the office complex, specifically using ultra-efficient, low-wattage LED lamps and troffers. Then we selected and installed the appropriate LED technologies to replace stairwell fixtures, exit signs, and egress fixtures. Additionally, we incorporated various types of occupancy sensors throughout the entire facility, providing a customized framework for reducing the operating hours of fixtures on a space-by-space basis.