Supermarket Chain Rings Up $235,000 in Energy Savings

East Cleveland, OH — Lufkin, Texas-based Brookshire Brothers operates 72 supermarkets in Texas and Louisiana. The company recently launched a facility-wide lighting update.

 

East Cleveland, OH — Lufkin, Texas-based Brookshire Brothers operates 72 supermarkets in Texas and Louisiana. The company recently launched a facility-wide lighting update including in-store, parking lot, exterior signage and refrigerated case fixtures. Using a myriad of new linear fluorescent lighting (LFL) and LED technologies from GE Lighting, Brookshire Brothers will, once all of its stores have been completed, reduce its annual operating costs more than $235,000 while establishing a model for energy-efficient lighting renovations at its stores.

“When we looked at options to impact our total energy costs, we identified several areas at different stores where new lighting, including LED fixtures, made a compelling case, both indoors and out,” says Eric Johnson, director of construction for Brookshire Brothers.

Re-lamping of linear fluorescent lighting (LFL) fixtures is now complete at 69 Brookshire Brothers locations where a more energy-efficient 28-watt T8 has replaced 32-watt bulbs in approximately 450 four-lamp fixtures per 30,000-square-foot supermarket.

Brookshire Brothers will save an average $3,200 per store per year in electricity expense after switching to the 28-watt solution — a more than $220,000 annual cost benefit to the company based on a $.09 kWh electricity rate and 12 hours use per day. The company plans to explore even more efficient 25-watt lamps and UltraStart® ballasts to suit future needs.

Five supermarket parking lots, including company headquarters, have thus far been retrofit with LED area lights. As a result of this substantial watts-per-fixture reduction, Brookshire Brothers will save more than $14,000 annually in electricity costs and further stands to diminish maintenance time and expense. The new area lights have a rated life of 50,000 hours.

“When I walk into a store that hasn’t been converted, I know I’ll find at least seven doors that aren’t lit for one reason or another,” explains Johnson. “Our electrical contractor told me, ‘You wouldn’t believe how much of the work we do for you is to repair fluorescent door lighting.’ In the stores that have been converted everything is lit 100 percent of the time. That adds up to sales right there.”

Johnson further plans to specify LED lighting in a forthcoming conversion of medium-temperature open cases to closed-door cases in a number of stores.

“In each case where new LED lighting was specified, it was easy to support that decision financially through decreased energy consumption, reduced maintenance, increased dependability and extended lamp life,” says Johnson.

Johnson added that GE’s LED lighting solutions will be considered in time for 32 convenience store locations also operated by Brookshire Brothers.

For more information, visit www.gelightingsolutions.com or www.gelighting.com.