Southern Supermarket Chain Rings-Up $235,000 in Energy Savings with Full Cart of GE Lighting Solutions

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

(GE) Brookshire Brothers (Lufkin, Texas) operates 72 retail supermarkets in an area covering Texas and Louisiana. Supporting its simple mission to Create a satisfied customer! the company recently launched a facility-wide lighting update including in-store, parking lot, exterior signage and refrigerated case fixtures. Using a myriad of new linear fluorescent lighting (LFL) and LED technologies from GE Lighting, Brookshire Brothers will, once all of its stores have been completed, reduce its annual operating costs more than $235,000 while establishing a model for energy-efficient lighting renovations at its stores.

When we looked at options to impact our total energy costs, we identified several areas at different stores where new lighting, including LED fixtures, made a compelling case, both indoors and out, said Eric Johnson, director of construction for Brookshire Brothers. Shortly after we met with our GE Lighting team to understand the anticipated electricity and maintenance savings, then made what was an easy decision to move forward.

Indoor retrofits return significant savings

Re-lamping of linear fluorescent lighting (LFL) fixtures is now complete at 69 Brookshire Brothers locations where GEs more energy-efficient 28-watt T8 has replaced 32-watt bulbs in approximately 450 four-lamp fixtures per 30,000-square-foot supermarket. These efforts include the replacement of existing ballasts with GEs high-efficiency UltraMax electronic ballasts as needed. Each UltraMax ballast installed will create additional energy savings of approximately eight watts per fixture.

Brookshire Brothers will save an average $3,200 per store per year in electricity expense after switching to GEs 28-watt solution a more than $220,000 annual cost benefit to the company based on a $.09 kWh electricity rate and 12 hours use per day. The company plans to explore even more efficient 25-watt GE lamps and UltraStart ballasts to suit future needs.

Outdoor area light efficiency adds up

Five supermarket parking lots, including company headquarters, have thus far been retrofit with GE Evolve LED Area Lights, bringing high-quality white illumination and energy savings to these spaces. Brookshire Brothers first worked closely with GE to create improved new lighting designs in the lots. GEs 210-watt Area Lights displaced 400-watt high-intensity discharge (HID) fixtures in two lots while in the others, 1,000-watt HIDs were replaced by 270-watt Area Lights.

As a result of this substantial watts-per-fixture reduction, Brookshire Brothers will save more than $14,000 annually in electricity costs and further stands to diminish maintenance time and expense. Where its 400- and 1,000-watt HID fixtures had been rated for 20,000- and 15,000-hours life respectively, GEs new Area Lights have a rated life of 50,000 hours.

Other LED installations cut cost

More here:
Southern Supermarket Chain Rings-Up $235,000 in Energy Savings with Full Cart of GE Lighting Solutions