School District Scores Home-Field Savings with LED Flood Lights

The school district in Tenino, WA, southwest of Seattle, recently took on a full-scale renovation of Beaver Stadium, the home turf of its high school football, soccer and track teams, which included a complete upgrade of its lighting.

The district  selected MaxLite, West Caldwell, NJ, for its StaxMax LED high output flood lights to light the field, a move that stands to save the district approximately 45,000 kWh and $8,500 in energy and maintenance costs annually. The financial proposition was further improved with a grant from power company TransAlta that offset 75% of the lighting project cost, resulting in a payback period of less than seven years.  

Outages in the existing metal halide system, and the high cost of maintaining the lights, prompted the district to seek an LED replacement product that would offer a much longer operating life and save energy. Each time a light needed to be replaced (every 3,000 hours), the district would have to rent a boom lift. Maintenance staff typically had to wait until several lights were out to make repairs cost-effective, which had a negative impact on the overall consistency and quality of light on the field. Working with University Mechanical Contractors and Northwest Edison, the district chose to replace the metal halide lights with StaxMax flood lights because of the product’s superior, 75,000-hour lumen maintenance, light output and efficiency.

“The new stadium lighting has provided a dramatically improved experience for our student athletes and musicians,” said Superintendent of Schools Joe Belmonte. “The new lighting really enhances the look of our new turf field, and it is significant that we have realized this improvement while reducing energy costs. These savings can now be used to improve the District athletic program.”

In addition to lowering maintenance and energy costs, the district also sought to improve the light output and distribution on the field, which was recently converted from grass to black turf. The incumbent 1,500-watt metal halide lights were mounted in groups of 10 on four poles, for a total of 60,000 watts and 40 fixtures. The fixtures distributed light unevenly, and delivered only 15 foot-candles across the field. Installing and aiming 13 StaxMax 540-watt fixtures on each pole achieved illuminance levels of 25 to 30 footcandles, and a more uniform distribution. In addition, the 52 StaxMax fixtures consume just 28,080 watts, reducing energy consumption on the field by more than 50 percent.

 The renovation was one of several energy projects that University Mechanical Contractors helped the district complete to leverage energy and operational savings with available grants and utility incentives. In addition to the stadium lighting project, the district installed a solar PV system for the high school.