Capital-free LED lighting project delivers energy savings of nearly 70% for Essex manufacturer

U70 are a rapidly growing window, door and conservatory manufacturer in Essex, with a strong local client base while operating across the whole of the UK.

U70 Director of Operations Leon McGill contacted SaveMoneyCutCarbon through its website chat service for some advice on the best energy-saving solutions and funding options for the company’s manufacturing warehouse in Whittam, Essex.

The 32,000 square-foot site houses many items of heavy machinery, so lighting is paramount for safety. The lighting installed was expensive to run with poor lux levels and some fittings were broken completely.

The challenge was to improve the quality of light but also resolve high maintenance costs and issues over failed lights. The cost to U70 could be several hundred pounds each time they needed to change a lamp as a cherry picker and external labour were needed. This often meant waiting for several lamps to fail before changing them.

Financing a large retrofit lighting project was a key issue and it quickly became clear that the work would be a perfect fit for the recently launched SMCC Capital-free Funding solution, where there are no upfront costs for the customer and repayments are made by sharing the savings on energy bills.

SaveMoneyCutCarbon inspected the warehouse and Regional Sales Manager Terry Sutton discussed the options in full and offered U70 three competitive LED lighting product solutions. The company selected Thorn George LED models with a trial fitting being installed to ensure it was the exact solution.

To fully manage the “pay as you save” project, SaveMoneyCutCarbon first installed a wireless measurement and monitoring device to view real time energy saving data and report back to U70. A baseline set of data was collated for several weeks before the installation of the new lights for comparison with energy use post-installation.

This allowed U70 to review comprehensive metrics and have confidence in the energy savings to be made. It also allowed SaveMoneyCutCarbon to get detailed insight into trends and suggest changes to the way energy is being used to improve further on savings.

The company then commissioned the installation of 63 Thorn George 150W High bays that have a working life of 50,000 hours, providing premium quality light levels with no need for expensive maintenance.

The LED lights are super energy efficient, using up to 50% less than standard high bay models and  have industrial-strength IP65 rating to protect against damage from dust and water, and IK087 impact rating.