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Lighting the Way Toward Energy Efficiency

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(as seen in Texas Petroleum and C-Store Journal 3rd quarter 2009)

Have you seen the light? That is, the Light Emitting Diode (LED) option some convenience stores and petroleum marketers are implementing to reduce installation costs, provide cooler operation and lower energy costs? Howdy's convenience stores has, and C&R Distributing is reaping the benefits.

El Paso based C&R Distributing has recently strengthened it's position in the market with the acquisition of Trans Mountain Oil Company and their chain of Howdy's convenience stores. Added to their recent addition of J&J Mini Mart out of Alamogordo, New Mexico, C&R Distributing now operates 32 convenience stores in the Borderlands area of Texas and New Mexico, including two raze and re-builds and three new projects on the drawing board.

The newest location is on EI Paso's east side at McRae and 1-10 (Gateway West) and represents 14 months of development, with three previous stores serving as learning laboratories. The unique feature of this newest Howdy's, is the use of Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting for all exterior and interior lighting. The use of LED lighting began as a solution to the EI Paso "Dark Skies" lighting ordinance, which limits exterior lighting to 40 lumens per ft2. Before examining the newest store, let's see how they arrived at this design.

The Yarbrough Road C&R Food Mart was the first of the new store designs, which laid the groundwork for the McRae location. Rather than focusing on the lighting, the store design featured more cool features, like open industrial black ceilings with exposed air ducts, darker colored interior wall paint selection for a warm environment. These are features which would help move them from their long established Chevron Food Mart image, as C&R Distributing is a long term Chevron branded marketer. To meet the restrictive light ordinance, a flat deck lens on a standard canopy light was installed to try and limit extra light from escaping from under the canopy. This didn't work as well as they had hoped.

To try and remedy the canopy lighting situation, the next C&R location - Sunfire at Montwood - had LED lighting from LSI Industries installed under the canopy. The LED lighting was flexible, with the Focus fixture providing precise beamplacement, able to highlight fuel dispensers, and the Ambient
fixture providing general area lighting under the canopy, which was softer, but still felt safe enough for female shoppers at night.

To Adrian Alvarado, C&R Engineer and Development Manager, the advantages of LED lighting outweighed the increased investment of the fixtures. While a standard 4-5 dispenser canopy with metal halide lighting installation will cost about $8,000, a similar installation with LED will cost around $21,000. However, the benefits of LED over Metal Halide are many:

• Minimum 100,000 hour life expectancy while maintaining 70% of initial light output levels, compared to 20,000 hours with diminished light levels of 50%
• Energy consumption reduced by up to 65%
• Dramatically improved light levels
• Virtually maintenance free
• 5 year warranty

With the LED installation taking place at new locations, they cannot verify the utilities cost savings. To do so, C&R will retrofit an existing location with utility consumption history with LED lighting to determine the actual cost savings. However, there was one immediate cost savings on all new installations - installation labor. The LED wiring is much simpler wiring, requiring smaller gage wire due to lower amperage, less labor to install and maintain. For this and other reasons, Mr. Alvarado and C&R decided to install LED lighting throughout the McRae Blvd. Howdy's, even in the walk-in cooler.

Anthony International, manufacturer of walk-in cooler display doors, now offers the OptiMax2 LED low-voltage lighting systems with longer lasting (50,000 hours) and cooler running lights for brighter and more economical merchandising. Additional benefits include no mercury in bulbs and no UV rays to degrade products, along with more sparkle on the products.

Following the acquisition of Trans Mountain Oil, they began re-branding to the well established and well respected Howdy's name and logo, taking advantage of some the innovative design and lighting features Howdy's had been exploring. While C&R Distributing was working with LSI Industries on their LED projects, Trans Mountain Oil and Howdy's had been working with Beta Lighting on their LED canopy lighting program. Following the acquisition, Beta Lighting was investigated more by C&R Distributing, with the assistance of D&H Petroleum & Environmental, a full-line petroleum and c-store supply and service company, distributing products like Anthony doors, Cornelius fountain and ice equipment, LSI and Beta Lighting, Gilbarco dispensers and pasequipment. Mr. Alvarado of C&R, was in Sturtevant, Wisconsin. After visiting the factory and several retail locations with Beta Lighting products installed, the decision was made to outfit the McRae store with LED lighting throughout.

Although the fuel island of the McRae location had one additional dispenser compared to the Sunfire location, it had half the number of LED lighting fixtures. Where the Sunfire Howdy's had 8 LSI Focus and 10Ambient fixtures, the McRae Howdy's had a single Beta Fixture, which included directional diodes for highlighting dispensers, without the need for additional fixtures making the total number of Beta LED lights in the canopy 10. The results are lower installation costs with equal distribution of light under the canopy. Inside the store, the lighting provides excellent product highlights, cooler operation and lower energy costs, making the additional investment a very smart move.

Future locations will continue to utilize LED lighting, as energy savings are more accurately verified and compliance with EI Paso's "Dark Sky" ordinance is achieved