Parking lot and garage safety

However, it is the better quality of lighting and the fact that lighting controls and motion detectors have been tied into the company’s surveillance system that has improved the safety of the 3000 employees on the premises.

“The real payoff came that first night we turned the lights on. The light output was so much better than what we had previously – the color, the distribution of the light – I knew we had made the right decision,” said Jim Young, vice president, corporate facilities for Marriott International, Inc.

“The parking lot and garage were dim and poorly lit and Marriott executives started to get complaints from employees who worked late and came in early,” explained Sean Veit, associate product manager of GE Lighting. “They knew they had to address their lighting situation because they had primarily a metal-halide system that hadn’t been re-lamped in over five years.”

Marriott purchased outdoor LED light fixtures from three vendors and compared their performance for a year. “We preferred the output and uniformity of GE’s Evolve LED lighting,” said Young. “GE performed a comprehensive lighting audit of our existing system, provided photometric analysis with 3D renderings of the new system, and forecasted our energy and maintenance savings. GE excelled as both a trusted strategic consultant and solutions provider,” added Young.

Security and energy savings were top priorities when considering new lighting to cover the nearly two million ft2 (45 acres) of parking and garage space at Marriott headquarters . Veit explained that the outdoor area included around 400 metal-halide fixtures and 200 mercury-vapor fixtures. “The ballasts of the mercury-vapor lamps had been legislated out in 1998 or 1999, so a lot of rewiring was required on those fixtures, but the decision was made to go to nearly all LED.” The outdoor lots are now lit by more than 230 Evolve LED area lights, while the parking deck has nearly 400 Evolve LED garage light fixtures , several Evolve LED tunnel lights and efficient GE T8 fluorescent lamps. Collectively, a 280W reduction per outdoor lighting fixture is expected to reduce electricity use by 580,000 kWh/yr, equating to $70,000 in utility cost savings.

Our LED area lights consume between 97W and 220W and were designed to replace traditional 400W to 1000W high-intensity discharge systems that can spill and waste light,” said Steve Briggs, vice president of product management and marketing for GE Lighting Solutions.

Veit explained that in the garage area, roughly 150 motion sensors are in place. “So at 2 am, if motion is detected, the lights that are currently dimmed to around 30 percent will automatically raise to 80 percent light output level. This is tied into the security system, so a camera will instantly show the security guard whether there is a deer in the garage or if something is going on that he should know about. That was a functionality that Marriott was very excited about.”

The corporate sign that welcomes visitors to the Marriott headquarters had a problem with moisture penetration, which often shorted out the ballast and led to frequent repairs. GE installed its Tetra PowerStrip LED lighting to remediate this reliability issue.

In addition to its parking lot and garage lighting, Marriott coordinated with Montgomery County government officials to replace 32 180W metal-halide street lights along the road that serves its headquarters and neighboring companies. With the initial cost of GE’s 106W Evolve LED Roadway Cobrahead fixtures covered by Marriott, the county will realize an energy savings of using 10,000 fewer kWh each year or $1200 in annual energy savings.