New packaging plant’s lighting pays for itself within a year

Peninsula Packaging is a leading provider of plastic packaging for the fresh produce and bakery markets. The company sought to improve its Yakima, Wash., plant with a higher quality, more consistent lighting system. After upgrading from metal halide and fluorescent fixtures to an LED system, the company saved energy and maintenance costs.

The facility’s old lighting took a long time to turn on and off, and created a drain on usable power after outages. The fixtures were also costly to maintain and disruptive to operations. The new lights (MaxLite) consist of 164 of the 150-watt models and 148 of the 250-watt models equipped with on/off occupancy sensors.

“After changing to LED lighting in our facility, we immediately began to reap the benefits of zero maintenance of our LED fixtures versus the high maintenance cost of the metal halide fixtures we had before,” says David Richins, plant superintendent at Peninsula Packaging. “We saw a decrease in our energy usage to the amount of $46,000 per year. An added benefit was the quality of the light the LED fixture produces. It makes for a brighter work area, which in turn, brought up the morale of the team members working in it.”

Lumen output now exceeds 17,000 lumens for the 135-watt model and 25,000 for the 250-watt model. Featuring custom strips populated with LEDs, the fixtures are specifically designed to replace linear fluorescent and HID fixtures in locations with 15- to 40-foot ceilings, such as warehouses and manufacturing facilities.

The fixtures will save Peninsula Packaging approximately 975,000 kWh and $46,000 in energy costs annually. Additionally, the fixtures qualified for utility rebates that will enable the company to recoup its investment in one year.