Lennox International: LED Project at New Regional Distribution Leased Location

Solution Overview

Lennox International Inc. (Lennox) is a global provider of climate control solutions for the heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration markets. The company has been at the forefront of producing energy efficient products serving the residential, commercial, and food service sectors. These efforts date back to 1895, when company founder Dave Lennox invented the first riveted steel furnace, which burned cleaner than any other furnace of its time. Today, these practices are reflected in the design, manufacture, distribution, and performance of its products, as well as its manufacturing plants and distribution warehouses. As part of Lennox’s strategy for meeting the company’s energy and environment goals under its Sustainability 2.0 corporate initiative, Lennox evaluated its leased and owned distribution warehouses to identify opportunities to use high efficiency Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lighting.

Background

Lennox International Inc. (Lennox) is a global provider of climate control solutions for the heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration markets. The company has been at the forefront of producing energy efficient products serving the residential, commercial, and food service sectors. These efforts date back to 1895, when company founder Dave Lennox invented the first riveted steel furnace, which burned cleaner than any other furnace of its time. Today, these practices are reflected in the design, manufacture, distribution, and performance of its products, as well as its manufacturing plants and distribution warehouses. As part of Lennox’s strategy for meeting the company’s energy and environment goals under its Sustainability 2.0 corporate initiative, Lennox evaluated its leased and owned distribution warehouses to identify opportunities to use high efficiency Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lighting.

With a newly constructed warehouse in Houston, Texas, the company specified LED lighting technology in the construction instead of the T5 lighting specified by the building architect. The optimal location for this facility required new construction rather than the modification of an existing facility. This would be a Greenfield site and it was important to the company to explore viable opportunities to minimize their energy footprint as their distribution network continues to grow to support rapid order fulfillment and minimize customer wait times. Lennox worked with the landlord to determine the best option. By going with a newly constructed warehouse, Lennox was able to enter into a long-term lease agreement which yielded a financially attractive payback period and supported project implementation.

The completed warehouse now serves Lennox’s growing markets in Houston and the surrounding areas and is an energy efficiency model for the rest of the company’s facilities.

Solutions

The resulting Houston warehouse offered more energy efficient lighting and better light quality with a reduced energy footprint. Because of the improved energy performance, Lennox realized annual lighting energy savings of $35,000/year. The combination of improved energy efficiency, occupancy controls, and lower energy intensity yields savings of approximately 55 percent over the T5 fixtures originally specified, with a 3–year simple payback. This project was completed in 2016 and after a brief commissioning period the facility is now fully functional.

LED technology provide multiple advantages in this project:

Reduced energy consumption – The Lennox energy team compared the lighting power density of the T5 lamps originally specified with those of LEDs and found the LEDs to be significantly less energy intensive.
Longer lifespan relative to other options – An LED bulb can last up to 100,000 hours, reducing the frequency of replacement. The avoided costs comprise the cost of replacement lamps and the labor required to install them.
LED fixtures provide full luminance almost instantly.
When ambient light is available through skylights, the LED fixtures can be dimmed to maintain a consistent lighting level and reduce energy consumption.
Whiter light is often perceived as being brighter, allowing a reduction in illumination level and therefore energy consumption.

Other Benefits

While not applicable to this facility (the warehouse space is not air conditioned), a tangential benefit of LED lighting is reducing the load on the cooling system. More efficient conversion of electricity to light means less waste heat is removed by the building HVAC system. It is also easy to integrate motion and daylight sensors with LED lighting. This allows lighting control specific to the areas of need rather than illuminating space unnecessarily or at greater intensities than necessary. For some applications there may also be additional cost avoidance associated with using LED lighting. Fluorescent lamps contain mercury and avoiding disposal of used fluorescent lamps may provide further savings.