Geyser Peak and Energy Industries are in the process of creating a long-term energy management and sustainability plan.

The first step in any energy management plan is to replace the “low hanging fruit.” For most commercial buildings, including Geyser Peak, lighting is the “low-hanging fruit.” The existing lighting at Geyser Peak consisted of very high wattage (high intensity discharge or HID) fixtures, old T12 linear fluorescent lamps, magnetic ballasts, and incandescents. Energy Industries replaced the HID fixtures with new high bay fixtures and high output T5 lamps. The T12 lamps were replaced by lower wattage T8 lamps, and the magnetic ballasts were replaced by premium efficiency electronic ballasts. All incandenscent lamps were replaced with CFL’s. To achieve additional savings, Energy Industries installed area-specific occupancy sensors.

The original cost of the lighting retrofit was approximately $200,000, however, the Small Business Energy Alliance provided partial funding which brought the project cost down to only $133,000. Furthermore, the nearly 700,000 kWh annual savings that Geyser Peak will achieve from this lighting retrofit equates to $100,000 a year in electricity bill savings. Consequently, Geyser Peak will start seeing a return in this investment in just over one year.