The Business

Valley Wine Warehouse takes care of the “liquid assets” for 110 wineries by storing more than one million cases of wine in a temperature-controlled environment. After sales are made, warehouse workers maneuver through the 250,000 square foot warehouse and fill the orders of wine so that they ’re “ready to roll” onto trucks for nationwide distribution.

The Challenge

Light and heat are the natural enemies of wine, but, ironically, the lights rarely went out at Valley Wine Warehouse. The high bay metal halide lamps that lit the cavernous warehouse had two distinct disadvantages: slow start-up times (up to eight minutes) and a limited ability to work with motion sensors. As a result, the continuously burning high bay lights, which were causing the electric bill to soar, were affecting both the wine’s quality and the warehouse’s bottom line.

The Solution

The Small Business Energy Alliance replaced inflexible, energy-guzzling 400-Watt metal halide lamps with energy-efficient, high output T-5 lamps with motion sensors. The T-5 lamps are 40% more efficient than the energy-guzzling metal halides and work effectively with motion sensors. Now, instead of leaving the lights burning for 20 hours a day, the lights come on only when needed.

The Savings

The wine is in the dark but the Valley Wine Warehouse has seen the light of more than $37,000 in annual savings. What’s more, the warehouse expects to see a reduction in energy use to maintain the warehouse’s 60° temperature because the T-5 lamps generate less heat than the metal halides.

The Bottom Line

Since the Small Business Energy Alliance’s Energy Savers Program paid for 50% of the installation cost with state-sponsored energy efficiency funding, the new lighting at Valley Wine Warehouse will pay for itself in approximately one year. “The Small Business Energy Alliance has helped us improve our operation, our client service and our bottom line,” said Don Wittschiebe, business manager of Valley WineWarehouse.