Not all panels are created equal!
Asurion Australia is a workshop facility based in Sydney’s South West that specialises in mobile phone repairs for both Optus and Telstra. Trackie Industries were initially contacted in an effort to reduce lighting costs, however, the benefits were much greater than reduced energy costs!
In the graph below see how in one day Asurion went from paying $6 per hour to 50 cents per hour for electricity.
Asurion were experiencing major lighting issues, the first being their employees needed quality light to perform the detailed repairs required on the mobile phones they serviced. The next issue was the existing lights were inefficient T8 36W twin fluorescent tubes that did not provide adequate light for the tasks at hand. Visually demanding work requires good lighting, so additional desk lamps had to be placed at each workstation.
Asurion is an international company that requires 24 hour video surveillance as a mandate. For this to be effective, the entire facility needed to be illuminated 24/7. During the day the facility had all the lights on but at night when nobody was onsite, all the lights were turned off. As a result, the surveillance cameras were unable to function at night. Keeping these lights on 24/7 would incur a large electricity bill due to the T8s inefficiency.
Asurion needed lights that would provide low glare but also enough light to be able to remove all the desk lamps. They also wanted an energy efficient solution for operation 24/7 for surveillance purposes.
enLightens Skyline Panel, 4000k 30W was chosen. It is a low glare edge lit LED panel and it provides an energy efficient retrofit solution to conventional fluorescent fit outs. At Asurion, the Skyline produced approximately 42% more light than the existing lights, this allowed them to be able to remove all the desk lamps.
Similarly, the low glare rating of the enLighten Skyline Panel meant that they no longer experienced the lighting bouncing from the floor surface. The team have reported productivity increases and there has been a reduction in complaints due to eye strain.
Finally, the energy savings have meant that Asurion’s profits have increased! After monitoring and benchmarking the energy usage, it was confirmed that prior to the upgrade, it was costing Asurion $6 p/h to run the lights (24/7). Following the upgrade, it now costs them 50c p/h during work hours. The icing on the cake is that because the light levels have increased, only two circuits are required to run during the evening as there is enough light to meet the needs of the surveillance camera requirements. The lighting upgrade achieved a 95% saving in energy spend!
Additional benefits for Asurion include receiving a government rebate for energy savings and the elimination of lighting maintenance, in other words, light globes no longer need to be changed and finally, staff morale is up just like the lighting levels! Asurion like to share the wins and proudly display the data with regards to energy and CO2 reduction for all the team to enjoy.
This project was even featured in the June 2019 edition of Circuit Magazine – a trusted and recognised publication in the electrical industry. Feel free to check it out here.