Another EYE to EYE Perspective
Pete Waldrop
Manager of Operations
Grayson-Collin Electric Cooperative, Inc.
Van Aldtyne. TX
As the Dallas Metroplex grew and land became scarce, population moved North to rural areas surrounding McKinney, Texas as
business and industry looked for new places to work and live.
At the same time, Grayson-Colling Electric Cooperative, Inc., the utility serving the 19500 residents living in the counties surrounding McKinney, began a program to upgrade the yard/security lighting in their service territory. Switching to EYE Sunlux Ultra Ace™ 150-watt high-pressure sodium lamps offered a number of advantages over alternate
solutions which were available to us. Most importantly, we saved 25 watts per fixture by simply replacing the 175-watt mercury-vapor lamps with the 150-watt Sunlux Ultra Ace. With 5,000 fixtures in our system, that’s a huge energy savings. In addition, we cut our labor expenses 90 percent during the change over because we were able to use the Sunlux Ultra Ace in our existing fixtures. The new EYE high pressure sodium lamps also significantly increased light levels and eliminated the need for special lamp recycling to meet State and Federal EPA regulations: something we knew we would face in the future. Finally, based on the energy efficiency of the new lamps, we expect to save about $40 per kWh over five years from the lamp change, plus reduce labor costs because of the longer lamp life of the new Sunlux Ultra Ace lamps. We also selected EYE Ignitron™ high-pressure sodium lamps for all new residential, commercial and industrial developments in our service territory. Using just one lamp manufacturer for all our lighting allows us to focus on meeting the needs of an expanding population, while elimination any problems in meeting current and any future EPA regulations. | 
