8-Month PG&E Study Validates Efficiency Benefits of Highly Integrated and Controllable Lighting Systems
Boston, August 27, 2014 – Digital Lumens today announced that Ace Hardware Corporation, the world’s largest hardware cooperative, has upgraded the lighting in areas of its 1,000,000 square foot Rocklin, Calif., Retail Support Center to the Digital Lumens Intelligent LED Lighting System. Since implementing the upgrade in October 2013, Ace Hardware saved an average of 81% on its lighting-related energy use.
“As a member-owned cooperative, every dollar we save using the Digital Lumens system directly benefits our member stores,” said Reid Barney, Facilities & Loss Prevention Manager for Ace Hardware. “And since lighting is our single biggest energy warehousing expense, reducing lighting-related energy usage by an average of 81% since installing the system translates into extraordinary bottom-line savings. With higher quality light, we’ve more than doubled the foot candle readings within our facility, resulting in enhanced productivity and employee satisfaction – all while saving massive amounts of energy.
By replacing the facility’s 1,653 fixtures (1,551 T5 fluorescent and 102 metal halide), Ace Hardware has reduced its power usage per square foot by 39.56%, while improving light quality and illumination levels throughout the facility.
The Digital Lumens deployment was preceded by an eight-month, in-depth research project by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to quantify the effect increasing levels of control have on energy efficiency. Conducted by PG&E partner TRC Solutions, the study isolated the variables that contribute to energy efficiency – dimming, occupancy and daylight harvesting – and evaluated them, both individually and collectively, in a real-world scenario at Ace’s Rocklin facility, documenting the extraordinary energy savings that highly integrated and controllable lighting systems can deliver to industrial facilities.
The PG&E study found that compared to basic LEDs, systems with “aggressive advanced controls,” like the Digital Lumens system, delivered 43% more energy savings, and a reduction of 93% over the previously installed metal halide fixtures. PG&E chose the Digital Lumens system for its research project because it was the only system on the market today that could both isolate, as well as aggregate, all the variables necessary to conduct its battery of tests.
About Ace Hardware
For 90 years, Ace Hardware has been known as the place with the helpful hardware folks in thousands of neighborhoods across America, providing customers with a more personal kind of helpful. In 2014, Ace ranked “Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Home Improvement Retail Stores, Eight Years in a Row,” according to J.D. Power. With more than 4,850 hardware stores locally owned and operated across the globe, Ace is the largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative in the world. Headquartered in Oak Brook, Ill., Ace and its subsidiaries currently operate 14 distribution centers in the U.S. and also have distribution capabilities in Shanghai, China; Panama City, Panama; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Its retailers’ stores are located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and approximately 60 countries. For more information on Ace, visit www.acehardware.com.
About Digital Lumens
Digital Lumens is redefining lighting with intelligent LED systems and services that bring the Internet of Lights – part of the Internet of Things – to our customers across more than 100 million square feet of space worldwide. The Intelligent Lighting System, based on LightRules management platform and patented intelligence integrated into any lighting fixture, provides unmatched control, efficiency, performance and visibility across entire operations. For more information, please visit www.digitallumens.com or follow Digital Lumens on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.