Park City Packaging

How Your Company Can Package a Great Energy-Saving Deal

How would your company like to receive $15,000 to cut its annual energy use by nearly a third?

UI’s Energy Opportunities program enabled Park City Packaging, Inc. to do just that. The company, which specializes in packaging spare parts for the aerospace industry, as well as manufacturing corrugated cartons and testing packaging for hazardous materials, qualified for a cash incentive of just over $15,000 for retrofitting indoor and outdoor lighting at its Stratford plant and headquarters facility.

“Of course, the amount of energy savings and incentives would be different for each commercial and industrial customer,” said UI Lead Engineer Mike Doucette, “but the Park City Packaging experience is a good illustration of how this UI conservation and load management program works and the benefits that can flow out of qualifying energy-savings measures, like this company’s lighting retrofit.”

Park City Packaging’s lighting system was more than 40 years old, more than overdue for complete modernization. “Over the years, we’d discussed replacing the system, but when we did the numbers, costs were too high and the payback too long,” CEO Richard Polzello said. “However, we met our financial criteria when we factored in the Energy Opportunities incentive. That made the retrofit feasible because it reduced our project cost which, in turn, shortened the payback period.”

The inside retrofit consisted of updating the lighting in the main packaging area and boiler and grease rooms. “We switched the old fixtures for 4-lamp fixtures using four-foot T8 fluorescent bulbs and electronic ballasts,” Tom Chirico of Chirico Electric Co. in West Haven said. “This newer technology saves energy while providing significantly more light.”

According to Chirico, an additional benefit of the changeover is that it cuts the per bulb cost by two-thirds. “The old eight-foot bulbs they were using were three times the price of the new four-foot bulbs,” he said. “Also, with the same type of fixture employed throughout the plant, we’ve made maintenance is easier by using what, in effect, is a one-size-fits-all bulb.”

The other part of the project was retrofitting the outside security lighting for the parking and delivery areas. This retrofit consisted of replacing nine 500W quartz lights with seven metal halide floodlights, which provide brighter, more energy-efficient lighting.

“All in all, this customer’s annual energy use attributable to lighting dropped by about 48 per cent—from 146,400 kWh to 70,900 kWh, a savings of approximately 75,500 kWh,” Doucette said. “In dollars, this means Park City Packaging will save in the neighborhood of $9,700 a year.”

UI’s Energy Opportunities program produced the results Park City Packaging was looking for. “The $15,000 incentive made our lighting retrofit project affordable and because our monthly bills will be lower, we’ll have a faster payback on our investment,” Polzello said. “It’s a program that other companies ought to pursue.”

Contact Information
Contact: Michael Doucette 203-499-2764