Popular craft brewer Stone Brewing has built a new 69,000-ft2 addition to its main production facility in Escondido, California (San Diego County) and selected networked LED-based lighting from Digital Lumens. Combined with significant use of daylighting, the new solid-state lighting (SSL) system is delivering 86% energy savings relative to what could have been achieved with T8 fluorescent lighting.
Stone is the 10th largest craft or micro brewer in the US and is well known both for the accolades its products have won and its environmental and philanthropic practices. The company generates 30% of the energy it uses with a solar system, has a water reclamation system, and maintains electric car charging stations. Environmentally-conscious lighting was a natural choice for the brewer.
"As a craft brewer committed to the sustainability of our business operations, the Digital Lumens system is a no-compromise solution that delivers extraordinary energy savings, while providing a level of control over how lighting is used within our facility that is truly impressive," said Joshua Lichtman, associate project manager for Stone Brewing. The company is pursuing LEED Silver status for its Escondido facility and lighting will play a major role in that effort.
The Digital Lumens technology integrates both sensors and wireless networked control in its LED luminaires that are paired with the company's LightRules lighting-management software. The system has been shown to generate savings as high as 90%, especially in warehouse applications where workers are only sporadically in specific sections of a building and most lights can be dimmed to very low levels.
"Intelligence-driven efficiency is enabling facilities traditionally burdened by high lighting-related energy costs to slash usage by up to 90% over HID and HIF alternatives, while gaining better, higher-quality lighting to facilitate their business operations," said Michael Feinstein, Digital Lumens vice president of sales and marketing. "The remarkable success of Intelligent LED lighting in a wide range of industrial applications — from manufacturing and warehousing to brewing and bottling — is fueling rapidly increasing adoption rates within the commercial and industrial sectors."
Indeed, it is the light quality that has impressed Stone as much as the efficiency. "Both from an energy usage and quality perspective, it has completely changed our view of what is possible with lighting," said Lichtman from Stone. "As a result, we are looking at how we can deploy smart LED lighting across our operations."
The significant use of daylight from windows and skylights also adds to the efficiency and quality story with natural light proven to improve productivity and wellbeing. Stone is expected to achieve payback in 1.77 years with the project.
