New Lighting Brightens Kewaskum School District

PLYMOUTH, Wis. -- A lighting update carried out last August in the Kewaskum School District’s middle and high school gyms was projected to not only dramatically improve the gyms’ lighting, but is expected to cut the lighting’s power consumption by 55 percent -- and benefit the local environment as well.

In the retrofit project, 72 six-tube Illuminator fixtures -- made by Orion Energy Systems, Inc. of Plymouth -- replaced 72 400W metal halide lights in the two gyms. Two other 250W metal-halide lights were removed without being replaced.

The lights in both gyms receive an estimated 3,120 hours of use each year, and, as a result, Orion has projected an annual saving of 31,581 kilowatt-hours (kWh) for the high school gym and another 27,924 kWh for the middle school gym, a total of over 59,500 kWh per year. This represents a usage reduction -- and cost savings -- of better than 55 percent.

Bob Ellis, buildings and grounds manager for the Kewaskum School District, says the new lights were a notable improvement over their predecessors. “There’s been a definite drop in the power usage,” he says. “I’m glad to go to the school board with these results because we’re clearly going in the right direction.”

As to the quality of the lighting, Ellis comments: “We could notice the difference right off. People like the new light better. Somehow you don’t ‘notice’ the light as much even though it is brighter because it is not as ‘obvious’ as some types -- it's much more even and consistent. It’s just a different atmosphere, and everybody likes the change.”

Ellis says he also likes Orion’s instant on-off operation, because the gyms receive heavy use. It takes metal-halide lamps 10 minutes or so to warm up each time they are turned on, he says, and this discouraged school staff members from turning the lights off until the end of the day. This, he adds, would save additional electricity and costs.

A final cost-saving factor, Ellis notes, was the lamps themselves. “I can replace all six fluorescent tubes in the Orion fixture for what it would cost me for one metal-halide bulb,” he says. “And when I was with a different organization, we’d [replace] the metal halides every year, because they lost that much light.”

New metal-halide bulbs typically lose up to half their brightness in six months to a year; the T8 full-spectrum fluorescent tubes used by the Illuminator fixture are rated at a 20,000 hour life and lose only a small fraction of their brightness over time.

Ellis says the lighting upgrade had been suggested by a distributor of Orion products. “We were talking with Ener-Save Services about how to save energy and they suggested the Orion lighting,” Ellis says. “At the time, they hadn’t been carrying the Orion products that long.”

“Some of our schools had been remodeled fairly recently, so the school board was not interested in replacing things they had just bought. We eventually settled on the high school and middle school gyms.”

In addition to cost savings, the Kewaskum schools’ power reduction will be beneficial to the local environment for years to come. This is because the significant amount of electric power -- 59,500 kWh -- that was once used for the lighting now no longer has to be generated at all. This will mean that several pollutants normally produced by that power generation will now not go into the atmosphere.

The Federal EPA estimates that over its 20-year estimated life of the fixtures, this retrofit will mean 20-year savings of 1,180,000 kWh not generated. This will mean, in turn, that 885 tons of Carbon Dioxide, 241 tons of Carbon, three tons of Sulfur Dioxide and eight tons of Nitrogen Oxides will not be released into the air.

EPA figures also indicate that this will also be the environmental equivalent of planting 217 acres of trees, or removing 167 cars from the road; it is also the conservation equivalent of saving 2107,273 gallons of gasoline or 2,554 barrels of oil over the same 20-year time frame.

All of these savings are possible because Orion Illuminator fixtures have been engineered to use a specially formed, highly reflective surface to ‘harvest’ light that is emitted from all sides of a fluorescent tube. The ‘harvested’ light is directed downward to where it is usable. As a result, The Illuminator provides more light from far less energy than standard fixtures.

The Illuminator is typically used with T8 full-spectrum fluorescent tubes and electronic ballasts. As a result, Orion systems turn on instantly, provide a much more natural type of light than older fluorescent types, and are more popular with employees in the typical workplace.

The Illuminator has been awarded several U.S. patents and recently won for Orion Wisconsin’s prestigious Spirit of Ecology and Manufacturer of the Year awards, as well.

“We’re glad to see 59,500 kWh come off the power grid,” commented Orion's President Neal Verfuerth. “It represents not only a cost savings to the school district and a plus for the environment, but is beneficial to the economy as well because it tends to reduce upward pressure on electric power rates -- and increasing power rates is an issue we’re all facing.”

“We’re also glad that the school district didn’t have to sacrifice something or ‘do without’ to obtain these benefits. They actually have better lighting at lower costs than before. We congratulate them on this noteworthy accomplishment.”

About the Kewaskum School District
The School District of Kewaskum, which encompasses nearly 155 square miles, is a Pre-K-12 public school system, which serves students in the Village of Kewaskum, Wis. and eight surrounding townships. About 2,000 students served by the District attend school at one of five sites: Kewaskum High School (grades 9-12, approximately 700 students), Kewaskum Middle School (grades 6-8, approximately 400 students), or Kewaskum, Wayne, or Farmington Elementary (grades Pre K-5). The District is governed by a seven member, elected Board of Education and employs over 200 professional and support staff. Special classes and programs are available to meet the needs of a wide range of students. Visit the district’s website at http://kewaskumschools.org/.

About Orion Energy Systems
Orion Energy Systems in Plymouth Wisc. manufactures and markets energy efficient lighting solutions for the manufacturing, distribution center, warehousing, commercial, school and gymnasium markets. Orion provides capacity displacement solutions for supply side management, transmission management, and demand side management for the electricity industry. Besides the awards mentioned above, the company recently received the Wisconsin Business Friend of the Environment Award, and was chosen as a "Success Story" for the 2002 Governor's Summit on Capital. For more information, visit www.orionlighting.com.