Orion Energy Systems : Lighting retrofit brings environmental stewardship award to Verona printer

For further Information contact:
Dave Cary, Communication Specialist
Orion Energy Systems

Plymouth WI
(920) 892-5804
:dcary@oriones.com

Jerry Swedish, plant manager
Park Printing House LTD
Verona WI
(608) 845-6505

Change to Orion fixtures saves firm 45,290 kilowatt-hours annually,
the equivalent of saving 3,739 gallons of gas each year

By changing all of its work-area lighting to a system made by Orion Energy Systems of Plymouth, WI, Park Printing House Inc. saved a surprising 45 percent on its lighting bill and received substantially better lighting in the bargain — and provided a boon to the local environment as well.

The 45% lighting power saving of 45,290 kWh per year means that over the 20-year life of the new lighting, some 883 tons of carbon dioxide, 241 tons of carbon, and 3.8 tons of sulfur dioxide that would have been produced by generating the power saved will not enter the atmosphere at all.

Stated another way, the reduction is the air-scrubbing equivalent of an eight-acre forest, taking seven cars off the road each year, or saving 3,739 gallons of gas each year. The move also slashed Park’s lighting bill by some 45 percent.

“I think it’s great that Orion gives these awards,” commented Park plant manager Jerry Swedish. “We hadn’t thought of the environmental benefits in these terms, but they make us even more glad to have done the re-lighting project. We’re glad to do something environmentally beneficial.”

“Park Printing House’s savings from this are real and permanent,” said Neal Verfuerth, president of Orion Energy Systems, who supplied the new lighting system. “This move could serve as a blueprint for other companies, one that is especially important for smaller businesses who are actually players in a global energy marketplace.”

According to US government data, the business sector of the economy uses 70% of the power generated in the country — and that about of ne third of that goes for lighting.

“By presenting Park Printing House with our Environmental Stewardship Award, Orion wants to highlight the fact that this energy efficient lighting project was good for everyone — good for Park’s bottom line, good for employee relations, good for the environment, good for our energy future.”

All told, Park Printing House replaced 60 465-watt HID metal halide lights with 60 227-watt Orion Illuminator ® T8 fluorescent fixtures. Cost data shows a 45.7 percent reduction in operating costs, and a corresponding reduction in electrical load of 45,290 kilowatt-hours (kWh), from the previous 99,116 kWh to 53,826.

Founded in 1952, Park Printing House Ltd. actually began as an advertising business specializing in bank statement stuffers. In the early 1960s the company evolved beyond designing and selling these stuffers to the actual printing itself, and has since expanded from there into many other areas of printing. Today the company can handle an extremely wide variety of printing jobs. It has six Heidelberg presses, one for letterpress, an AB Dick Duplicator, and a Heidelberg Trendsetter that makes plates in four to six minutes. Workflow is digital, every process aided by the use of computers, but people are still, Park says, its distinguishing characteristic. Visit the Park Printing House website at: http://www.parkprinting.com/

Orion Energy Systems has been innovating in the energy and lighting business since 1996. Orion’s innovative Illuminator ® fixture, an energy-efficient lighting platform for industrial applications, has been awarded a series of 14 patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Additionally, Orion has applied for numerous other patents related to metering and control technologies for lighting.

Neal Verfuerth, Orion President, received one of Wisconsin’s most prestigious awards, the Ernst & Young 2004 Manufacturing Entrepreneur of the Year.

Orion provides capacity displacement solutions for supply side management, transmission management, and demand side management for the electricity industry. Visit the Orion website at http://www.oriones.com/.