Office Depot's $8 Million Lighting Retrofit

Office Depot is reducing their energy use by making numerous energy efficiency investments, including a lighting retrofit project.

The company is de-lamping one out of every three bulbs in tens of thousands of fixtures across more than 1,000 stores, and adding reflectors to the remaining two bulbs to maintain light output. The $8 million project garnered an 84 percent internal rate of return.

Other measures implemented by Office Depot include adding motion detectors in warehouses, upgrading heating and ventilation, and centrally controlling energy with an energy management system.

These efforts certainly paid off, with the company reducing their electricity use from 625,000 MWh in 2007 to 433,000 MWh in 2011 – a 31 percent drop. With the reduction in electricity costs, Office Depot will save about $10 million across all their stores in the U.S.

Source: Energy Manager Today

By Gaylen Davenport