General Motors - Corvette Assembly Plant

Customer Profile:

General Motors Corvette Assembly Plant located in Bowling Green, Kentucky has a staff of over 1,000 employees. Reducing operating cost is a major initiative in this one million square foot facility.

Customer Issues:

• Increased Energy and Maintenance Cost
• Older Lighting Technologies
• Lighting Fixtures No Longer Needed in Many Areas
• Variety of Lighting Technologies
• High Number of Burned Out Lamps and Ballasts

Project Objective:

As part of a comprehensive energy project, we designed and implemented an energy efficient lighting upgrade at the Bowling Green General Motors Corvette Plant. The upgrade was designed to improve the working environment, replace old lighting technologies, reduce maintenance and utility costs and standardize lighting materials. Light levels were evaluated at each area of the plant to ensure the areas met the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) lighting standards. The overall project was funded utilizing the reduction of energy dollars from within the existing utility budget.

Results:

Improved lighting systems and reduced utility cost were achieved by upgrading over 11,000 fixtures during a two-month installation process. The new lighting systems included upgrading the incandescent and T12 fluorescent lamps and magnetic ballasts with new energy efficient T-8 fluorescent lamp and electronic ballast technologies. In some areas offices were overlit. In order to correct this issue, the number of lamps were reduced to bring light levels in accordance with IESNA standards. Existing fixtures that were not needed to produce light output were disconnected to generate additional energy savings. The project resulted in many benefits for the plant that included increased light levels from 10 – 15%, reduced energy costs by 35%, reduced operating costs, and standardization of lighting materials. Improved lighting, funded with reduced energy cost, extended the life of lamps and ballasts, increased maintenance productivity, and protracted material warranties. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized the Bowling Green General Motors Assembly Plant for their energy reduction achievements.