San Francisco International Airport Cuts Energy Costs by 47 Percent with Universal’s EVERLINE® LED Technology

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is the seventh busiest airport in the United States. Last year, the Bay Area nonprofit group Acterra gave SFO its prestigious Award for Sustainability for the airport’s efforts to reduce energy consumption.

One of the airport’s key accomplishments was a 44 percent reduction in energy usage at its parking garages by replacing T12 HO fluorescent lamps with more than 1,000 Universal EVERLINE® LED Linear Replacement Kits (LRKs).

In addition, the LED kits last nearly 14 years longer while delivering a 42 percent increase in lumen output over T12 HO fluorescent lamps. “SFO is one of the ‘greenest’ airports in the country,” said Ray Leong, sales manager at Safeco Electric Supply in San Francisco. “The airport’s electrical buyer contacted us because the parking garages had T12 tubes that were drawing a lot of energy. They wanted to make the transition to LED technology. The parking garages are built in an oval shape. There are bends in every corner.”

“We definitely wanted to partner with a company like Universal.”

“We knew that Universal stood by their products—both LED drivers and LED boards. The airport ordered enough for a trial run and were so pleased that they continued buying LRKs to upgrade the entire parking garage. The electricians said the LRKs were easy to install and the light quality was excellent, so they kept ordering more.”

One of Leong’s key concerns was ensuring a positive long-term relationship with the airport.

“Universal was the right solution to fulfill this tall order,” says Leong. “We pride ourselves in only giving SFO the highest quality products, and we didn’t want any costly callbacks.”

Dramatic Maintenance Savings

Fluorescent T12 HO lamps have a rated life of 10,000 hours, which means that SFO had to replace them roughly every 14 months. Universal’s LRKs deliver a rated life of over 140,000 hours, providing remarkable maintenance savings as the ones installed at SFO won’t need to be replaced for over 15 years.

Improved Lumen Output

In the cooler temperatures of San Francisco, an 8-foot T12 HO lamp gets about 5,200 lumens on average. As the tube deteriorates, the output can go down as low as 4,000 lumens by its end of life. In contrast, each LRK emits over 7,400 lumens and will hold 90 percent of that light output for the first 90,000 hours of life, which is roughly 11 years.