St. Mary’s Hospital

Nestled in the waterside community of Leonardtown, Maryland, St. Mary's Hospital is a full-service 107-bed hospital, delivering state-of-the-art emergency, acute inpatient and outpatient care. St. Mary’s receives one of the highest levels of satisfaction of all hospitals in Southern Maryland.

St. Mary’s was investigating options to cut down on energy use and costs. To achieve that goal, inefficient lighting had to be evaluated. Atlantic Energy Concepts, who handled the lighting portion of the energy-efficient upgrades, audited the facility and determined that outdated T-12 fluorescent lamps, and T-8’s, with magnetic ballasts were draining energy. Brad Salamone, Vice President  of Atlantic Energy, reasoned, “Fluorescent lighting has come a long way in the past few years and taking advantage of the most up-to-date developments in this technology will save a client money and improve the overall environment.”

Fixtures were replaced  in the following areas: patient rooms, emergency rooms, operating rooms, exam rooms, x-ray areas, the laboratory, pharmacy, kitchen and cafeteria, offices, lobby and storage areas. Technology was upgraded from T-12 fluorescents with magnetic ballasts to 28-watt T-8 fluorescents with electronic ballasts. Additionally, where T-8’s were in place, their old magnetic ballasts were removed and electronic ballasts installed to standardize the lighting throughout the hospital. The advantages of moving up to state-of-the-art technology are numerous. T-8 lamps consume less wattage, or energy, yielding significant savings on utility bills. T-8’s feature longer lamp life than the older  lights, decreasing the maintenance costs associated with lamp replacement. Also reducing maintenance costs, is the decreased lamp depreciation (how much light is lost over the lamp’s life cycle). An important feature of the T-8’s as opposed to the older T-12’s is improved color rendering (a term meaning how true colors appear when viewed under lights), which meant that colors will appear crisper and cleaner. The lights previously used in the hospital tended to have much higher color distortion. Finally, these new lamps have a higher lumen output, which equates to more optimal light levels… something extremely important in a hospital setting.

Along with the lamps, outdated magnetic ballasts were replaced with superior electronic ballasts, which draw less wattage. Electronic ballasts also eliminate the humming sound associated with magnetic ballasts.

Significantly, the project payback was 4.35 years; meaning that the energy savings produced by the lighting retrofit would pay for the upgrades within that period of time. Beyond the payback period, the $20,759 annual energy savings can be directly added to the hospital’s operating budget.
 
Old lamps and ballasts that contained PCB’s were sent to an EPA-licensed recycling center for reuse and recycling. PCB  ballasts were destroyed, and full documentation was presented to St. Mary’s Hospital to prevent any future liabilities.