Eneref Ecologically sensible ideas for commercial and industrial facilities

Baltimore Gas & Electric cuts their energy… use

BG&E truck repair facility in Woodlawn area of Baltimore County

Brian Smith, property manager for Baltimore Gas & Electric installed energy efficient lighting in their truck repair facilities and explained it this way;

At one time we were only a power plant, it didn’t make sense for us to be energy efficient. But now that we have to purchase power for our own facilities, plus our customers, it makes more sense for us to not use so much overhead and power. So [the energy efficient lights] really helps us.

The bottom line is that Baltimore Gas & Electric spent a half million dollars on 1500 light fixtures that were so energy efficient that the project paid for itself in just 18 months.
Smith attributes the energy savings to the high tech fixtures with advanced optics, which allow BG&E to cut back on the total number of fluorescent tubes.  He was replacing high pressure sodium’s and old T12’s with T5HO.
And the color improve substantially, says Smith.

The issue with auto mechanics – truck mechanics. You pop the hood of a car, and you have all your bundles of wires that feed to your sensors and all your electrical components. When you have high pressure sodium lighting the orange and brown looks the same. You really can’t tell the color of the wire. By going to a higher output, brighter white light, with a high color rendition you can actually tell the color of the wires much easier. You don’t have to have a secondary light to see the color of the wires. It was a remarkable difference.

It was a no-brainer.