GE’s Energy-Efficient, Easy-to-Install LED System Winner of Refrigerated Display Lighting Showdown

With the help of GE Lighting distributor Facility Solutions Group (FSG), Wawa installed 4000K Immersion LED lighting in refrigerated cooler and freezer cases in its remaining 590 locations, totaling more than 10,000 doors, throughout 2010 and 2011.

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — August 14, 2012 — (NYSE:GE) — When Wawa, Inc. (Wawa, Penn.) was searching for visually appealing, simple-to-install vertical refrigerated display lighting, it discovered an all-inclusive answer in Immersion™ RV30 LED technology from GE Lighting. In addition to these benefits, GE helped the operator of more than 600 convenience store/gas station locations across the Mid-Atlantic region drive down energy consumption.As a result, Wawa now enjoys combined energy and maintenance savings exceeding $1 million a year 

“In 2006 we saw our utility budget increasing between 12 and 15 percent over each of the previous five years,” explains Scott Boorse, energy and petroleum operations manager for Wawa. “In response, we created an energy group to determine where the money was going. It turned out lighting accounted for 30 percent of our electric usage. At that time we were building bigger stores with more coolers, so we started to look at ways to significantly reduce our energy consumption and found LED refrigerated display lighting a compelling answer.”

Wawa tested and evaluated three competitive LED solutions in refrigerated coolers in several of its stores beginning in 2008. One product it tested was a puck-style system that did not fully illuminate across cooler doors, producing light bands on the food packages inside. A second LED option it tested, a light bar design, experienced a 30 percent failure rate. Both products also required a longer installation time than the company desired.

Offering significant energy savings, high-quality uniform light, a long reliable service life and faster installation, GE’s Immersion RV30 LED emerged as the clear winner following Wawa’s thorough assessment.

To read the complete press release from GE, Click Here.

Photos by GE.  www.genewscenter.com