London, ON - Brose Canada recently completed a significant energy-efficiency upgrade to its lighting systems within its manufacturing plant located south of Highway 401 in the Forest City Industrial Park. The Brose Group spans the globe with 53 locations in 23 countries. The London plant, first opened in December 2005, employs approximately 800 people in its highly automated facility to manufacture automobile mechatronic components and systems, including manual and power seat adjusters and door closure systems.
The lighting modernization project involved replacing 327 metal halide lighting fixtures with state-of-the-art T5 linear fluorescent fixtures designed for medium- and high-bay applications. Aside from the energy-efficiency gains, many of Brose’s staffs acknowledge that the modern lighting system has inherent secondary benefits, namely a more appealing work environment. Hans Schreff, London Hydro’s Manager of Conservation Programs, explains that the modern lighting system provide both more uniform light distribution and a higher colour rendition.
The provincial saveONenergy RETROFIT PROGRAM, operated by London Hydro within its franchise service territory, provides substantial financial incentives for retrofitting existing electrical equipment with modern energy-efficient systems. Under this program, Brose Canada not only reduced their annual energy losses by more than 240,000 kWh (representing an annual savings close to $30K based on 12¢/kWh) but received an incentive cheque for $38,798 – representing almost 50% of the investment in modernizing the lighting system.
In undertaking this project, Brose shares the understanding with numerous other London-based manufacturers that “electricity is a controllable input cost” and as such investments in energy-efficiency reduce the ongoing costs associated with wasted energy.
Mr. Schreff notes that one of the biggest challenges in promoting energy conservation is that, although manufacturers pay a lot of money for the electricity they consume, it is an invisible commodity. Unlike domestic water or natural gas that is sold by the cubic meter, the units of measure for electricity are kilowatts and kilowatt-hours; which can be a difficult unit of measure to comprehend. London Hydro has successfully motivated many manufacturing customers to invest in energy-efficiency by posing the question: How many hundreds or thousands, or even tens of thousands of widgets do you need to manufacturer so that the net profit covers the recurring cost of your wasted electricity? This image tends to give the decision-makers a more meaningful reference for investing in energy-efficiency.
Brose’s plant management team explains that this lighting retrofit project was merely the start of a larger mission to do away with other inefficient uses of energy within the overall plant. To this end, London Hydro’s roving energy management engineer has been working with Brose’s team to identify other energy-efficiency opportunities within the plant, such as optimizing the operation of the compressed air distribution system, the process cooling associated with the laser welding cells, etc.
For more information about the saveONenergy RETROFIT PROGRAM, please visit the website: www.saveonenergy.com/business, or contact London Hydro’s Conservation & Demand Management team directly at retrofit@londonhydro.com
