Illuminating Ideas: Why It Makes Sense (& Cents) to Upgrade Your Parking Garage Lighting
By Mike Riebling
Sustainability is top of mind these days and with good reason. Buildings must adapt to minimize their long-term environmental impact. Your parking structure is no exception.
Upgrading to LED lighting can help – it can allow you to not only achieve a significant reduction in energy use but also realize cost savings.
Take a multi-level parking garage with 500 spaces, for example. Upgrading from traditional, 100-watt (W) Pulse Start Metal Halide luminaires, which consume 129W each, to LED luminaires, which only consume 52W each, can reduce your annual energy consumption by 38.5kW. Then, based on an average electricity price in commercial applications of 13.45 cents per kWhr, that means you can save more than $45,000 every year on your electric bill! And even if this garage is lit 24/7/365, you can still reap an annual energy savings of 337,260kWhr, which is equivalent to ~239 metric tons of CO2.
The lifespan of LED luminaires is also longer than traditional HID luminaires, translating to less material waste and maintenance. You can reinvest the funds you save here into what matters most: growing your business.
Switching to LED lighting can help you drive the transition to a greener parking infrastructure – and realize significant cost savings.
Mike Riebling is Product Manager Garage & Canopy, Floodlights and Sports for Gardco by Signify. He can be reached at michael.riebling@signify.com.