Orion Energy Services: Ceiling Manufacturer Scores Trifecta With ‘Extreme’ Lighting Makeover, Earns Orion’s Environmental Award As A Result

For further Information contact:

Dave Cary, Communication Specialist

Orion Energy Services

1204 Pilgrim Rd.

Plymouth WI 53073

(920) 892-2935

dcary@oriones.com

Chuck Schamberger, Maintenance Manager

BPB Co.

1415 Pilgrim Rd.

Plymouth WI 53073

(920) 893-8898

chuck.schamberger@bpb-na.com

A highly welcome 53% saving in the amount of power it uses for lighting was just one notable result of a recent lighting change by the BPB Co. of Plymouth. According to maintenance manager Chuck Schamberger, however, this savings was not really the key to BPB’s decision to change to lighting by its neighbor, Orion Energy Services, also of Plymouth.

“We knew about Orion and kicked the subject around for a while,” Schamberger said. “Then, as a demonstration, they put in 17 or 18 lights in one area. Although energy savings was important, what really made up our minds was the quality of the light — what we do– manufacture ceilings — is all aesthetics. People have to see the product on the line and see whether it’s good or not. It’s all visual. The metal halide lighting we had was always off color and always shifting colors through its whole life.”

“The difference was dramatic. We had a yellow catwalk that looked brilliant under the Orion lights, but a few feet farther, under our old metal halides — blah.”

“We like the Orion lighting a lot. Of course, we like the energy savings, too. You can look up and not get temporarily blinded , there aren’t as many shadows, and the quality of the light is great.” Lighting quality was leg two of the trifecta.

All told, BPB replaced 280 400-watt metal halide lights with 280 six-tube Orion Illuminator® fixtures rated at 224 watts. As a result, the electric power BPB uses for lighting alone fell from 609,336 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year to 293,530 — a 53 percent saving of 315,806, which made their electric bill fall correspondingly.

With that reduction came another beneficial reduction, the third leg of the ‘trifecta:’ according to federal government formulas, BPB’s 315,806 kWh annual reduction will mean that 308 tons of carbon dioxide, 84 tons of carbon, 1.3 tons of sulfur dioxide and .6 tons of nitrogen oxides — all ‘greenhouse’ pollutant gases — will not enter the atmosphere each year.

Comparable government formulas indicate that BPB’s power reduction is the air-scrubbing equivalent of a 58-acre forest or removing 51 cars permanently from the road. It is also the conservation equivalent of saving 26,070 gallons of gasoline each year.

As a result, BPB has earned Orion’s Environmental Stewardship Award. Orion presents this award to companies who provide significant environmental benefits through use of Orion products on the general idea that since a substantial segment of the public seems to feel business and industry are indifferent to environmental issues — which Orion feels is not accurate — it seems fitting to call attention when the opposite is provably the case.

“We appreciate receiving the environmental award,” Schamberger said. “I would say we are an environmentally-conscious company. We have a person who is charged with environmental issues, so all our permits, etc are in place. All our fluorescent tubes are recycled, plus, the larger company obtains its gypsum (for drywall manufacture) from fly ash produced by power plants and mineral board made from blast furnace slag. As far as environmental things go, we watch it.”

BPB’s savings and the related environmental benefits are possible because Orion Illuminator ™ fixtures have been engineered to use a specially formed, highly reflective surface to ‘harvest’ light emitted from all sides of a fluorescent tube and direct it downward. As a result, an Illuminator™ fixture typically gives half again as much light at half the operating cost of metal halide lighting or two-thirds the cost of older fluorescents.

The Illuminator ™ fixture is used with T8 full-spectrum fluorescent tubes and electronic ballasts, which produce the type of light BPB desired. As a result, Orion systems turn on instantly, provide a more natural type of light, and operate at a relatively cool 110 degrees F.

The Illuminator ™ fixture has helped Orion Energy Services win several awards, including the 2004 Wisconsin Partners for Clean Air Award, given by the Wisconsin DNR, and the 2002 Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year Grand Award, given by the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Association It also helped earn for Orion president Neal Verfuerth the 2004 Ernst & Young Wisconsin manufacturing Entrepreneur of the Year award and a Small Business Times’ Bravo! Entrepreneur award in 2005.

The BPB Company was formed as the Capaul Co.in Illinois in 1994, and bought by two Plymouth WI residents who moved it to Plymouth in 1996. They sold the company to the Celotex Co., of Florida, who in turn sold it to the British firm BPB, which was acquired quite recently by the French entity, St. Gobain Inc. BPB manufactures 17 types of fiber and metal tile ceilings as well as the suspended type, which are sold under the Capaul name. Visit the company website at http://www.bpb-na.com/

Orion Energy Services, Plymouth WI, manufactures and markets energy efficient lighting solutions for the manufacturing, distribution center, warehousing, commercial, school, and gymnasium markets. Orion provides capacity displacement solutions for supply side management, transmission management, and demand side management for the electricity industry. Neal Verfuerth, Orion President, received one of Wisconsin’s most prestigious awards, the Ernst & Young 2004 Manufacturing Entrepreneur of the Year, and Orion has won numerous awards as a company. For more information, visit www.oriones.com.