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Even Lights Graduating at Cal State Fullerton06-07-11 | News

Even Lights Graduating at Cal State Fullerton




Visionaire Lighting's digitally-controlled premier fixtures help California State University, Fullerton cut costs by 70 percent and garner a 50 percent installation contribution from Southern California Edison.
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This is exactly the kind of lighting project the Obama administration would be proud of: a large entity, motivated through financial incentives, replaces hundreds of energy-guzzling, metal halides with efficient-and-programmable LEDs to save energy and create jobs.

The large entity, in this case, is California State University, Fullerton. Taking advantage of financial incentives offered by Southern California Edison; CSUF is replacing hundreds of pedestrian luminaires with Premier post tops and Aria - Wall Sconce by Visionaire Lighting; and networking the poles via a wireless communications system from Exergy Controls.

By combining several smaller projects together, CSUF got SCE to pick up half the tab for the entire package. Sounds easy on paper, but Doug Kind, manager of commissioning and energy for CSUF, and his department deserve all the credit. Kind took a macro view approach towards putting all the players in place. The university will save nearly $800,000 in product-and-installation costs, 70 percent on future energy bills, and another $40,000/year in maintenance expenses.

It's the happy ending to a year-and-a-half long planning stage that hit a fairly serious roadblock at one point - when the wall pack from another manufacturer failed to pass U/L; and the only DLC-approved pedestrian fixture they could find was outside the university's budget. DLC stands for DesignLights Consortium. It's the entity that independently qualifies fixtures for funding from energy companies nationwide. Think of it as the EnergyStar for commercial/outdoor lighting.

Without that certification, CSUF could not move forward; and the clock was ticking down on its funding window.

''At that point, we contacted Gary Lazenby of West-Lite Supply, with whom we'd had a long-standing relationship,'' said Jeff Bechtold, who works with Kind as CSUF's energy coordinator. ''Gary put us in touch with Mark Marincovich of Site Lighting Systems, who brought us all to Visionaire Lighting's factory."

At Visionaire Lighting, Larry Branam, executive vice president of sales and marketing; and Joe Kay, vice president of sales, toured everyone through their facilities. Then they brought in Bill Hein, vice president of product development; and John Wandrey, director of engineering - and everyone sat down, and just listened.

''After we'd explained what we were looking for, Visionaire Lighting told us to pick a fixture and they would do the rest,'' said Lazenby. ''CSUF even chose a discontinued style - but, no matter - John Wandrey put one of his top engineers on the project, Aida Spremo, and they built a sample in time for the tests. So, basically, Visionaire Lighting entered the competition during the last two weeks of consideration, and was able to outscore every other entry with a fixture designed specifically for CSUF's needs.''

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