Winemark hasn’t looked back since it decided to convert all its lighting to LED. Northern Ireland’s biggest independent chain of off-licences had experimented with using LED for a little while but had been put off a wholesale switch to LED by the prohibitive cost.
However, two years ago the “graph of costs and benefits crossed, and we decided to take the plunge,” says Gavin Anderson, systems accountant for the Belfast-based company.
And today, the conversion of its entire estate of 80 off-licences, 21 convenience stores, nine bars and a hotel, along with most of its warehouses, is almost completely lit by LED.
Before Winemark saw the light, it had been fitting out new stores with T5 lighting, which comes close to LED in efficiency but costs half as much to install. It had also considered upgrading T8 fluorescent lights in its existing stores to T5. But after the Carbon Trust did an on-site energy evaluation and offered an interest-free loan of £500,000 to buy LED lights from one of its accredited suppliers, Light Footprint Ltd, the decision swung firmly in favour of LED.
“If all of our estate was T5 there wouldn’t have been the energy saving to justify LED, but the majority of lighting was still T8,” says Anderson.
“The extra savings, coupled with the fact that Carbon Trust were willing to back us, and the decrease in ongoing maintenance costs, made LED more attractive [than T5] to us. We also wanted to future-proof ourselves, because energy prices aren’t going to become any cheaper.”
Indeed, the British Retail Consortium predicts they will rise by 47% over the next five years. LED prices, on the other hand, are still falling.
As a result of the falling cost of LED, there were some concerns on the Winemark board that they should wait for a couple of years until prices bottom out. But Anderson said there was a “law of diminishing returns” with LED: wait and you might get your lights for less, but you will lose out on substantial energy savings while you dither.
A no-brainer
This has been borne out by the fact that since the installation, Winemark has lopped a chunky £250,000 off its annual electricity bill of £1.6m - a rate that means it will be able to repay the loan inside two years.
The added bonus is that the longer-lasting LED bulbs, which are guaranteed against breakage for between three and five years, means Winemark is saving tens of thousands of pounds a year on not having to replace broken fluorescent lights.
“With the reliability of LED, you are not having to buy replacement bulbs all the time and send a man out to fit them,” says Anderson.
“Wait and you might get your lights for less, but you will lose out on substantial energy savings while you dither”
Winemark’s other big concern before making the switch to LED was the quality of the light. Some of the lights on offer from other suppliers had been too harsh. “You don’t want an off-licence that looks like a hospital corridor,” says Anderson. But Light Footprint boss Stephen Logan offered to install LED in one of its Belfast off-licences and invited managers to see the finished product. That clinched the deal.
“Initially I just wanted the light to be as good as fluorescent but it made the store look even better,” says Anderson. “That really made it a no-brainer.”
In the past, better lighting has meant more light. And bigger bills. Not now. A typical shop with 20 fittings of 92W fluorescent fittings was relamped with 15 LED panels, each at 39W, to give the same amount of light, says Logan. “We were able to offer energy saving on the fittings as well as a reduction in the number of replacement fittings required.”
The fact that Winemark’s off-licences are open 88 hours a week and its convenience stores more than 100 hours added to the business case. “The longer you have the lights on, the more you save,” says Anderson.
No-interest loans
As Anderson says, with the Carbon Trust offering no-interest loans to its clients in Northern Ireland and Wales was a huge bonus and a major factor in deciding to make the switch (in England the Carbon Trust offers low-interest loans through the Energy Efficiency Financing scheme it runs with Siemens). But he says the key thing was that the Carbon Trust scheme meant Winemark didn’t have to go to its lenders.
“It was a cashflow issue. The fact we didn’t have to ask the bank for this was a big plus.”
As a large energy user, Winemark is part of the Carbon Reduction Commitment, which means it has to buy allowances from the government to cover every tonne of its CO2 emissions. Having slashed its electricity usage thanks to rolling out LED lighting, this bill will also reduce. The company is now looking at going for ISO 50001 certification in energy management as another string to its bow.
Not that Winemark’s marketing team has been jumping at the opportunity to brag about its bright green credentials. Winemark may have become one of the most energy-efficient retailers in Northern Ireland. But the benefits have to be expressed in other ways.
“I don’t think people on the radio want to hear an advert about how green we are,” says Anderson. “They want to hear what our prices are.”
However, he firmly believes that “we should all do our bit for the planet. Switching to LED is a win, win, win. The environment, the company and the customers gain.”
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