NECA Green Energy Challenge

Energy Audit and Lighting Analysis

Participants: Michelle Acosta, Leo Li, Ka Ho So, Ken Uchida
Advisor: Dr. Matthias Fripp
Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Introduction & Motivation Results & Analysis
The 2015 NECA Green Energy Challenge will focused upon the development of a back-up While LEDs initially cost more, in the
Replacement Cost per Total Bulb Labor $50/hr @
power system and resiliency plan for an existing facility with demonstrated critical power long run they are both environmentally Bulb Total Bulbs Bulb Cost 10 bulbs/hr

needs. In order to do this, the team conducted a lighting audit of the Nu’uanu YMCA. and economically efficient. It was 4' T8 InstantFit 526 $24.99 $13,144.74 $2,630.00
recommended that most current lighting 2' T8 InstantFit 69 $23.99 $1,655.31 $345.00
The Nu’uanu YMCA uses over 1100 light bulbs accounting for about 20% of the facility’s fixtures are replaced with LEDs. LED LED 4 $11.99 $47.96 $20.00
LED 275 $11.99 $3,297.25 $1,375.00
total power usage. A lighting audit was conducted and HI Efficiency Engineering found that replacement bulbs were chosen to be
LED 131 $14.99 $1,963.69 $655.00
majority of the lights were compact fluorescents and T8 fluorescents. The four racquetball installed without changing any of the
rooms each use around 30 large CFLs totaling to about 11% of the fixtures in the entire existing fixtures, keeping the overall U Bulb T8 LED
Fluorescent 4 $22.99 $91.96 $20.00
building. The YMCA has begun transitioning to LEDs replacing about 10% of their fixtures, cost of the new system down. LED 2 $163.99 $327.98 $10.00
primarily in their newly renovated weight room. Totally replacing the fluorescents with Total 1011 $20,528.89 $5,055.00
LEDs will enable the YMCA to improve their energy efficiency and lower the amount of The facility has multiple ways to get to Payoff in
Total cost $25,584 years 0.87
fixtures per square foot in the facility. the same location. Because of this,
there are certain stairwells that are no Table: Cost analysis of the proposed lighting system
Project Description longer taken as frequently because a
faster route is available. By
The walkthrough provided the team with a basis for how efficient the facility is in regards to
implementing a occupancy sensor the
lighting. Currently the Nu’uanu YMCA uses a large amount of compact fluorescents which,
lights will only be on when used. In
while decently efficient, can still be improved.
addition windows may be implemented
After a walkthrough of the facility, a technical analysis was conducted to further understand to reduce the need for lighting during the
the facility’s energy usage from lighting fixtures. All light bulbs were accounted for and the day.
system required a total of 36155 watts. The team came up with a plan by analyzing current
wattage usage for each type of light bulb and light fixture and then looking into alternatives The new lighting system will save 260
such as LED fixtures and occupancy sensors to cut down on energy costs. In order to kWh per day saving a monthly average
keep the cost of materials down we prioritized by looking to use existing fixtures, and of $2450.40. The projected lifespan of
sought energy efficient alternatives with a longer lifespan than their current compact the system is 7 years. With the cost of
fluorescents. materials and labor totalling $26,171.61,
the return on the system will be about Figure: Total energy consumption of the current
one year. lighting system and the proposed lighting system
Materials & Methods
After taking inventory of all their existing light bulbs, we needed to make sense of all the
data that we took, so we used the manufacturer’s website datasheet for each light bulb, Conclusion
NECA works, HECO , and Excel. After several walkthroughs of the facility and conducting a lighting analysis of the existing
system, the team was able to successfully generate a plan for a new lighting system with a
First we put all the current wattage usage for each type of light bulb and the amount there longer lifespan that implemented LED fixtures and occupancy sensors to reduce energy
was put into an excel spreadsheet using the manufacturer's datasheets then, we calculated consumption.
the energy costs associated with the light bulbs using the HECO rates for schedule J.
Afterwards, we researched their LED replacements and obtained the cost for each bulb. The proposed lighting system will cost $26,171.61 and is projected to last seven years. It
Then we found the cost of replacing all the light bulbs with the LEDs and used their will save an average of $2450.40 monthly which will allow the system to pay for itself in
projected wattage usage to figure out their energy cost. Furthermore, we observed that about one year.
certain rooms at the YMCA kept the lights on even while the rooms were empty or were
using too many light bulbs. So, we separately calculated the energy use and cost by for
those rooms. We researched for a more energy and cost effective way to manage these
Acknowledgements
rooms and decided to use occupancy sensors because it was cost effective and more Special thanks to Dr. Matthias Fripp, Mr. Al Itamoto, Mr. David Poore, and Mr. Travis Watanabe
efficient than manual switches.
University of Hawaii, Department of Electrical Engineering