Berto Center Lighting Project

Lighting Project at Berto Center in Deerfield, IL

Berto Center Lighting Project
Project Overview

Twin Supplies recently completed a lighting renovation project of the main gym and workout areas at the former Chicago Bulls practice facility in Deerfield, IL. The project was paid for in part through the Smart Ideas for Your Business incentive program offered by ComEd, known as the Small Business Energy Savings Program (SBES). The balance of the project was paid for by the new owner of the facility, Event Creative of Chicago, IL.

According to Mr. Sean Cannon, co-partner of the New Venue One North Shore as the facility will now be known, “We’re very happy with the new look of the facility. I’m really glad (Twin Supplies) pushed the project through with us here at Event Creative.”

Project Details

Replacing the existing metal halide lights in the gym and workout areas with LED “Spun Bays” from Lumecon Corp. in Farmington Hills, MI reduced the wattage in those areas by 83% (50,760W to 8,460W). The total project cost was $54,732 with incentives from ComEd totaling a whopping $33,840 and resulting in a total out-of-pocket cost for Venue One of $20,892. Estimated annual electrical savings are $14,545 making the simple ROI of this project just 1.4 years or a little over 16 months.

As estimated by the project workbook provided by the Smart Ideas for Your Business incentive program offered by ComEd, the environmental benefits from replacing 47 gym lights with LED luminaires is the equivalent of 28 less cars driven per year; or 15,078 gallons of gasoline saved; or even 18.4 tree seedlings grown for 10 years – truly an environmentally friendly event if there ever was one.

Do you want to see the results for yourself?

Come check out the amazing new look at a former sports facility that once was the basketball center of the universe during the Chicago Bulls championship runs of the 1990s—Venue One North Shore in Deerfield, IL.

Tim Snow

Project Manager

Why should we consider a lighting upgrade?

If you’re interested in saving money and energy, keep reading

SAVE ENERGY=$$$$$

The average kilowatt rate in the USA is ten cents per kilowatt hour and climbing. If, for example, you leave a 100-watt bulb running continuously (730 hours a month), and you pay10¢/kWh, your cost to run the bulb all month is 100 x 730 ÷ 1000 x 10¢ = $7.30. Per Bulb.  What if you could get the same amount of light but only use 18W, reducing that $7.30/per bulb to 1.31!

Read more

Refrigeration Job Overview

At Twin Supplies we take great pride in being able to offer our customers a wide variety of energy saving measures and incentives. In this post we invite you to explore the details of one of our most recent refrigeration and lighting projects. For more information about all the refrigeration measures we offer please visit: Refrigeration Measures.

Project Overview

  • Customer: Route 66 Beverage
  • Measure Type: Lighting & Refrigeration
  • Total Project Cost: $7,511
  • Incentive Acquired: $5,771
  • Out of Pocket Cost: $1,741
  • Annual Energy Benefit:
    • Before: 142,300 kWh/yr
    • After: 99,600 kWh/yr
  • Payback Time: 5 Months
  • Annual Electric Savings: $3,843

Project Details

Lighting

The old lighting inside the freezers was replaced with new LED fixtures, giving all the products inside a very crisp, clear and more appealing “look”. Also, existing 500W halogen exterior lights were replaced with brand new 24W LED flood lights, yielding a whopping 476W reduction per fixture while maintaining visibility levels!

Refrigeration

All of the freezers/coolers were powered by older model “shaded-pole” motors which ran at a constant 140W. Twin Supplies was able to replace these energy hogs with new EC-Motors which, thanks to the use of a controller, consume only between 9W and 40W! Through the use of a controller with two sensors, the system is able to detect when the motors need to be working at full speed (40W) or when they can be set to the lower speed (9W). These motors run at 9W nearly 90% of the time, saving the end user a significant amount of energy. This replacement did not involve any changes to the compressor or anything related with the refrigeration system itself besides the electric motors. The second measure involved adding strip curtains inside of walk-in coolers and freezers. The advantage of the strip curtains is immediate – anytime the door is open, particularly for an extended period of time like during a delivery, the strip curtains keep the majority of the cold air inside the compartment and the hot air out, preventing overworking of the unit and energy waste. Finally, a third and very simple measure involved adding a door closing mechanism for the freezer and cooler doors, which ensures that the door remains fully and firmly closed, keeping air from leaking in or out.

The customer was thrilled with the job and has now permanently reduced energy consumption, resulting in lower energy bills. Please feel free to contact us for a free, no obligation audit at your business, where we can provide a detailed energy savings proposal to you!

Register now for the 2015 Energy Efficiency Expo

Register now for the 2015 Energy Efficiency Expo

Energy efficiency 2015 EXPO

Join us for this year’s Energy Efficiency Expo: Innovation and Action, taking place September 16, 2015 from 7a.m. – 4p.m., at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill.

Learn about trending industry topics, share best practices with hundreds of industry leaders and earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs)

Register now and when five people from the same company register, the sixth person can attend the Expo at no cost.* Also, use code EXPEXH and take $20 off the $99 registration fee.

Please follow this link: http://www.ecw.org/e3

Where’s My Spot?

At Twin Supplies we make your world brighter.

Usually I’m the project manager who takes care of the “big public customer”: Your Village Hall needs better lighting? I’m your man. The public works facility is too dark—not a problem. Police and fire stations need brighter exterior lighting; you’ve come to the right place.

Two hundred retrofits here. One hundred and fifty hibays there. Seventy-five LED wall packs at all compass points….done! Next!

So when our business manager handed me a referral from the local power company for an underground parking facility in a nearby northern suburb, I thought, “Why’d she give this little project to me?”

I met with several of the residents who were overseeing the upgrade in lighting for their thirty space underground facility. The challenge was to upgrade from 67 two lamp T12 1×8 fixtures to something brighter but at a reasonable cost. It wasn’t the glamourous, big expenditure project to which I was accustomed. The deep concrete ridges in the garage ceiling prevented much of the light from spreading beyond the narrow passageway where the existing fixture was mounted. LED canopy? Out of the customer price range. LED wrap fixtures? Also expensive. What was the best solution to this lighting scenario?

An office colleague said, “why not put up an eight foot, T8 two lamp retrofit? And use 28W T8 lamps; that will reduce the existing wattage from 148W to only 49W; and the 6,000 lumens produced by the retrofit upgrade will be plenty bright.” In addition, with the power company incentives covering more than 50% of the cost of this simple solution, the lighting upgrade was well within the residents’ budget. The residents loved the cost of the lighting upgrade, and they loved the new light levels. Another successfully completed project. End of story, right? Hardly.

About a week later the real estate company in charge of the facility called me. They wanted to know if I would be interested in looking at another underground parking garage. The residents of this new garage had heard through the grapevine of the fantastic new lighting in their sister facility’s underground garage, and they wanted to know if we could do the same for them.

Although the lighting solution at the second garage was different (a four lamp, eight foot T8 retrofit), it was no less successful—and affordable—than the first project. The second group of residents was happy and I was ready to go back to big gymnasiums…… Three days later I get a call from the same real estate company. Another suburb, another underground parking garage: can you do it?

Can I do it? I’m the guy who just completed two of the most energy efficient, brightest, residential underground parking garages on the north side of the city. It’s my specialty!

Yesterday, I just quoted new lighting for my ninth underground parking garage for a large condominium complex. At Twin Supplies, the future is looking…..bright!

 

Tim Snow
Project Manager

Understanding your electric bill

Understanding your electric bill

The first step toward efficiency is to understand how your facility is using energy. An in-depth knowledge of energy costs can lead to better decisions on which areas to address – such as lighting, gas, etc.
Your utility bill contains valuable information regarding rate charges, metering methods, and the types of fuels your building consumes. At first glance, it may be difficult to navigate the various rate charges. The small print and string of numbers may blur together – leaving you no choice but to find the “amount due” line.
However, as the old adage “knowledge is power” goes, here are a few tips on understanding your electric bill :
Service Charge – This monthly charge has nothing to do with your energy consumption, it is a fixed rate that helps cover the administrative and maintenance costs for the utility.
Energy Charge – This charge takes the intensity of the energy used, factors in how many hours it’s being used, and multiplies that by a rate charge. Obviously, the more intense the energy consumption (inefficient bulbs), the higher the cost of operation over time. Warning! This rate may not stay fixed. Some utility companies charge according to “blocks”. For example, if you surpass your 20,000 KWH block, you may be charged at a higher (or lower) rate!
Power or Fuel Cost Adjustments – In some cases, a utility may pass extra costs that were unaccounted for through this charge. These “extra costs” can be fluctuations in energy prices spurred by demand, or lack thereof.
Demand Charge: This charge is dependent on energy used during “peak hours”. Peak hour energy use varies by utility. Some utilities may have their peak period during the summer, while others may have it during the winter. Understanding your utility’s peak hour period can help you make informed decisions on when to use energy, or what energy systems to implement.
Now that you’ve taken the first step to understand how energy is used in your facility, step two is to act! Contact us for a complimentary energy assessment!

Welcome to the new Twin website!

 

Welcome to our new site! From time to time, we will be posting various blog pieces that deal with energy efficient lighting, or energy efficiency in general. It is our hope that these pieces will help inform the community about the new technologies and “best practices” that are helping transform our understanding and use of energy.

See you soon!