Two New York Public Schools Say Elation Gear Cuts Their Energy Use by 80%

Two New York City public schools report having reduced the energy consumption of their stage lighting systems by more than 80% after replacing their existing conventional lighting rigs with LEDs from Elation Professional.

The plunge in energy usage occurred at Walton High School and PS 86X, an elementary school. Both schools installed the new lighting systems as part of an experiment conducted by the Division of School Facilities, part of the city's board of education to gauge the cost-saving potential of LEDs.

The experiment began about four years ago, said Michael A. Fink, of Brookiyn-based Magical Designs who works as a design consultant to Prince Electric, which is under contract with the Division of School Facilities. "At that time, one of the division's inspectors approached me and asked if we could put in an LED (stage lighting) system at one of the schools so that they could take a look at it," said Fink. "That school -- Walton High School -- was very large."

All of the lighting on the 56'-wide-by-25'-deep) stage in Walton's auditorium was subsequently replaced with Elation Opti Tri Pars and Design LED 60 Tri-Strips. The Opti Tri Par is a DMX-compatible RGB LED Par, powered by eighteen 3W tri-color (red, green, blue) LEDs. The DLED 60 Tri-Strip is a 68" LED strip containing sixty 3W tri-color (red, green, blue) LEDs.

Twelve Opti Tri Pars were installed on a strip across the front of the stage. Behind it were three identical strips, each holding four DLED 60 Tri-Strips, plus five Opti Tri Pars positioned between the strips and at either end "to focus in on specific areas." The total number of LED fixtures came to 27 Opti Tri Pars, and 12 DLED 60 Tri-Strips. Conventional fixtures continued to be used for front-of-house lighting.

Where Walton's old stage lighting system had required 100,200W of electricity, the new LED rig ran on just 18,464W, Fink reported -- an 81% drop in energy consumption. "And that number included the front-of-house conventionals," Fink said. "We proved that, over a 10-year period, the school could save more than $202,000 in energy and maintenance costs, because, in addition to the lower electricity usage, LEDs don't require gels or lamp replacements. Also, with LEDs the installation costs are lower because they require no dimmer rack and fewer circuits."

Although school facility division officials were "pretty impressed," said Fink, "they were new to LEDs, so they wanted to look at longevity, quality, performance, and other issues before they went forward."

The decision to move forward was made this year when the New York Division of School Facilities requested that the auditorium at a smaller elementary school, PS 86X, be retrofitted with LED stage lighting. The school's existing conventional lighting system was less than five years old, but already was "completely burnt out," said Fink.

PS 86X now has the first all-LED stage lighting system in the New York City public school district. Fink used the same Elation fixtures used at Walton, installing 18 Opti Tri Pars and three DLED 60 Tri-Strips on the school's 30'-wide-by-15-1/2'-deep stage. A front strip over the stage contains six Opti Tri Pars, and a strip behind it holds the three DLED 60 Tri-Strips, along with four additional Opti Tri Pars. "The front lights give coverage over specific areas, while the back strip allows them to do band risers," said Fink. The remaining eight Opti Tri Pars are located on the front edge of the stage, four on either side.

The old system at PS 86X consumed 12,400W, while the new system consumes only 1,952W. The school district has given the green light for an LED lighting system to be installed at a third school.

In addition to the requisite that fixtures be either ETL- or UL-approved, Fink says that he chose the two units for a couple of reasons. "First, with schools we want to keep it to the point where the fixtures are simple and usable, as both of these lights are. Second, we don't want to sell anything that we haven't heavily tested. At the time the first job came about, we had seen these units, tested them, and looked at Elation's service and replacement policy. Because of these factors, we decided that the lights were a good choice for schools."