Chalmor’s LifeSaver ‘pay as you save’ scheme has enabled leading self-adhesive materials manufacturer Ritrama to upgrade lighting and controls at its production centre in Eccles with no capital outlay. Instead, the lighting installation is being funded through quarterly payments, which are less than the money saved each quarter from reduced energy consumption.

“The LifeSaver scheme has enabled us to greatly improve the quality and responsiveness of our lighting, reduce our carbon footprint and save money at the same time,” explained Ritrama UK’s representative. “Furthermore, there hasn’t been any capital outlay, so the whole scheme makes perfect commercial sense,” they added.

The energy saving lighting project was carried out in an existing facility, part of which has recently been reorganised to create a self-contained finishing centre. The existing high pressure sodium (SON) lighting was no longer meeting the needs of the space, so a total of 650 SON fittings were replaced with 420 Chalmor Brilliance high output, long life fittings. This enabled Ritrama to reduce its installed electrical load by 136kW.

In addition, the new lighting is linked to Chalmor Uni-L lighting controllers, providing presence detection and daylight modulation to ensure that the lighting is only used when needed. The enhanced control is expected to reduce the lighting’s running hours by around 40%, resulting in a reduced electrical load and an annual energy saving of 1,444,956kWh.

Further savings are achieved through reduced maintenance costs. Re-lamping was costing nearly £10,000 per annum, whereas the Brilliance fittings are unlikely to require re-lamping for seven years. The combination of reduced energy and maintenance costs is providing Ritrama with a total annual saving of over £90,000 per annum.

As Ritrama has adopted the LifeSaver scheme, the cost of the lighting, controls and installation has been spread over a period of three years, providing a net saving of over £12,000 a year from day one. After the capital is repaid, Ritrama will benefit from annual savings of £90,000.

“We have been very pleased with the new lighting, which gives us a brighter light and makes the picking of colour vinyls easier through better colour rendering – as well as helping us to save money,” they concluded.

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