City of Tulsa water plant cuts annual energy bill by $22,000

"With only three or four electricians available to work on all projects within the facility, troubleshooting failed fixtures was a waste of time and money. It’s an important element of the facility, we cannot have lights out. But, some of the fixtures were in a position where we couldn’t even get to them. It was becoming a real problem,” said John Curry, Facilities Maintenance Manager, A.B. Jewell facility. “Anyone can change a light bulb. We need our electricians to be working on bigger projects and other projects were getting put off for lighting maintenance.”

The dingy, distorted colour of the metal halide and high pressure sodium lights was also a problem for visibility inside the plant. Workers had a hard time discerning between the green and blue colours on various pump motors and the poor colour rendition made it difficult to visually inspect the water to detect septic conditions.

Aiming to upgrade, the A.B. Jewell staff began researching the options and selected a few LED samples for a fixture trial. After evaluating each system, they settled on Dialight’s LED StreetSense streetlights and vigilant high bays, low bays, flood lights and area lights. In addition to a better performing fixture, the Dialight LEDs offered the industry’s only 10-year full performance warranty, covering the entire fixture, power supply and housing, which sealed the deal for A.B. Jewell. A.B. Jewell’s electricians replaced the 350 existing lights, ranging from 70 to 400W, with just 259 Dialight LEDs, ranging from just 33 to 212W. Not only were they able to reduce the total fixture count, but the change out slashed 446,576kWh from their annual consumption while dramatically improving the brightness and quality of light in and around the facility.

“I was hesitant at first when I pulled out of the box,” said Curry. “I thought, ‘There is no way this is going to be bright enough. But, then we wired it up and those things are spectacular. The difference is like night and day.”

Because of the tremendous energy savings, the project qualified A.B. Jewell for a $32,000 rebate incentive from its energy provider, the Public Service Company of Oklahoma, covering almost 20% of the total project cost and bringing the payback period down from 8.1 years to just 6.6 years. With every fixture guaranteed to be maintenance free under Dialight's 10-year warranty, which means every dollar saved after 6.6. years goes straight to A.B. Jewell's bottom line for reinvestment into other equipment and process upgrades.

Curry added: "It's been a complete 180°. We were practically giddy with excitement over the improvement in light. You can actually see into the equipment pits and even the contractors that were here before the lights were switched out are so impressed. Once a week we get compliments from the guys working in the building and morale is definitely higher."