GE LED lighting improves safety while reducing energy cost at Marriott headquarters

"The parking lot and garage were dim and poorly lit and Marriott executives started to get complaints from employees who worked late and came in early," explained Sean Veit, associate product manager of GE Lighting. "They knew they had to address their lighting situation because they had primarily a metal-halide system that hadn’t been re-lamped in over five years."Marriott purchased outdoor LED light fixtures from three vendors and compared their performance for a year. "We preferred the output and uniformity of GE’s Evolve LED lighting," said Young. "GE performed a comprehensive lighting audit of our existing system, provided photometric analysis with 3D renderings of the new system, and forecasted our energy and maintenance savings. GE excelled as both a trusted strategic consultant and solutions provider," added Young.
Security and energy savings were top priorities when considering new lighting to cover the nearly two million ft2 (45 acres) of parking and garage space at Marriott headquarters (Fig. 2). Veit explained that the outdoor area included around 400 metal-halide fixtures and 200 mercury-vapor fixtures. "The ballasts of the mercury-vapor lamps had been legislated out in 1998 or 1999, so a lot of rewiring was required on those fixtures, but the decision was made to go to nearly all LED." The outdoor lots are now lit by more than 230 Evolve LED area lights, while the parking deck has nearly 400 Evolve LED garage light fixtures (Fig. 2), several Evolve LED tunnel lights and efficient GE T8 fluorescent lamps.Taiwan market LED lighting pricing strategies and global competition.Collectively, a 280W reduction per outdoor lighting fixture is expected to reduce electricity use by 580,000 kWh/yr, equating to $70,000 in utility cost savings.
"Our LED area lights consume between 97W and 220W and were designed to replace traditional 400W to 1000W high-intensity discharge systems that can spill and waste light," said Steve Briggs, vice president of product management and marketing for GE Lighting Solutions.Veit explained that in the garage area, roughly 150 motion sensors are in place. "So at 2 am, if motion is detected, the lights that are currently dimmed to around 30 percent will automatically raise to 80 percent light output level. This is tied into the security system, so a camera will instantly show the security guard whether there is a deer in the garage or if something is going on that he should know about. That was a functionality that Marriott was very excited about." Before and after photos taken with the security camera (Fig. 1) show the improved light output and distribution in the parking lot.