University Sports Complex in Hanover MA has bragging rights as the largest single indoor sports complex in New England. With eight basketball courts and over 15,000 sf of indoor turf, this facility consumes massive volumes of electricity given its long open hours, seven days per week.
May 4, 2015
Exceptional lighting leads to exceptional play on the turf at the University Sports Complex
University Sports Complex in Hanover MA has bragging rights as the largest single indoor sports complex in New England. With eight basketball courts and over 15,000 sf of indoor turf, this facility consumes massive volumes of electricity given its long open hours, seven days per week. Chris Horne, general manager, determined that the success of the facility would be directly dependent upon not only generating revenue, but also controlling costs, especially variable costs like electricity.
“In sports, the quality light impacts the quality of your play. Many of our customers, from competitive athletes to casual participants commented on the difference that the ThinkLite LED lighting has made.” – Chris Horne, GM University Sports Complex
“The complex is fairly new, so the idea of simply retrofitting the lamps from existing T5 high output fluorescent tubes to ThinkLite’s high lumen linear LED T5 tubes was the right way to go.” said Chris. “Utilizing the existing fixtures was very important to us from both a cost and scheduling standpoint”.
By simply changing the lamps in their existing fixtures to ThinkLite LEDs the results were immediate. The retrofit produced a 50% reduction in energy use while actually improving the light levels by 15%. This reduction saves the complex over $22,000/year and by eliminating lamp and ballast maintenance, another $6,000 per year is saved.
ThinkLite also worked directly with National Grid to secure a cash incentive rebate that covered 70% of the project cost. Danny Wadhwani, COO-CFO of ThinkLite said, “We provide a comprehensive, turnkey solution and that involves working closely with the utility companies to maximize the incentives to the customer, including filing all the paperwork and leading the necessary inspections. In this case, we were very happy to secure a large 70% cash rebate. This translated to a direct payback of only 1.2 years for the entire project!”
Chris Horne was thrilled with the outcome of the project in light of the 35% electric rate increases in Massachusetts: “We looked at our electric bill for February 2015 and compared it to February 2014. It was essentially the same amount at a time when all businesses were reeling with rapidly increasing bills.”
“In sports, the quality light impacts the quality of your play. Many of our customers, from competitive athletes to casual participants commented on the difference that the ThinkLite LED lighting has made,” said Horne. “We have set the standard for quality court and turf illumination for all sports, be it soccer, lacrosse, basketball, field hockey or more. We thank ThinkLite for that distinction.”