Osram Sylvania initiates major LED lighting project across the state of Tennessee

An SSL retrofit is underway at the William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower in Nashville, and Osram Sylvania Lighting Solutions is partnering with the government to upgrade lighting in facilities across the state.

Osram has announced a partnership with the US state of Tennessee that will result in LED-based lighting retrofit projects in government facilities across the state. Specifically, Osram’s Sylvania Lighting Solutions business unit is engaged in the project that is expected to reduce energy consumption for lighting by 60–80%. Already Osram Sylvania and Tennessee have begun work on the William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower in Nashville, TN — perhaps the most recognizable high-rise building in the state.

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The project that is underway in what’s locally called the Tennessee Tower will be complete in June. That building spans 30 floors and houses more than 2100 workers. The Capital Projects Group in the State of Tennessee Real Estate Management (STREAM) division worked with Sylvania Lighting Solutions in planning to retrofit 1300 existing fixtures with LED products and to install 10,200 new LED luminaires.

Perhaps more important in delivering energy savings, autonomous and programmatic controls will eliminate the energy that goes to waste powering lights where they aren’t needed. A feature article we published a few years back broadly covers the energy saving potential of controls. The Tennessee Tower will use daylighting where sensors can reduce light electrical levels when natural light is available. Moreover, occupancy sensing will allow the building to autonomously reduce light levels to 5% of full output in unoccupied spaces.

“We in state government are here to provide citizens with the best service at the lowest possible cost,” said Bob Oglesby, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, which includes STREAM. “We are pleased that innovative efforts such as this lighting project will be upgrading our facilities while reducing the cost of government.”

The William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower in Nashville is one of many facilities that will receive an LED lighting upgrade.

The energy-efficient lighting will also enable the state to light the portico of the Tennessee Tower for the first time in 30 years. The outdoor lighting will reveal the Travertine marble structure of the building architecture.

The Tennessee Tower lighting installation is the first of eight planned projects focused on SSL retrofits that will be led by Osram. Others include:

• The Tennessee Supreme Court in Nashville, a four-story site listed on the National Register of Historic Places
• A Volunteer Training Site in Smyrna for the Tennessee National Guard
• The Major General Hugh B. Mott Tennessee National Guard Headquarters in Nashville
• National Guard Readiness Centers in Erwin, Jackson, and Henderson
• The Tennessee Department of Correction/Turney Industrial Complex, located in Only
• The Tennessee Fire Services and Codes Enforcement Academy in Bell Buckle
• The East Tennessee Regional Health Office in Knoxville

Many of the projects will include LED lighting and controls. And the Volunteer Training Site includes a solar-power element.

Tennessee has been home to a number of innovative LED lighting projects over the years. For example, we published an article a few years back on research conducted with several SSL companies and the US Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratories to both study energy efficiency and quality of LED-based lighting.