LADWP Customers Find Their New Energy-Efficient Lighting ‘On Target’
By Evan Henerson
For more than a decade, on an ongoing basis, Local 11 electricians have been working to make the lights of L.A. not only shine more brightly, but more efficiently, and at a huge savings to the customers who pay the bills.
Tens of thousands of customers of the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) have taken advantage of the LADWP’s Commercial Direct Install (CDI) program since its launch in 2013, according to Rubio Rubio, a 29-year member of Local 11 whose company, On Target Electric, oversees the upgrades. From schools, libraries and fire stations to warehouses, churches, and apartments — and everything in between — these customers have seen their lights switched from T12 to T8 lamps in the early years of the program and more recently to include LED exit signs. These efficiency upgrades are for non-residential electrical customers whose average monthly use is 250 KW or less and come at no cost to the customer.
The first project undertaken with the program rollout was the Super Mercado Latino supermarket on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, and projects have continued from there with nearly 21,000 businesses taking advantage of the program in the first six years. Even a certain smiling feline can now do his chuckling with greater visibility.
“Have you driven down the 110 Freeway through downtown toward San Pedro? By USC, there’s Felix Chevrolet, right? We did all of their outside lighting,” Rubio said. “When you drive by at night, you can see how bright it is.”
“It’s all businesses, thousands and thousands of jobs,” he continued. “Some of them are small and might take us a couple of hours. Some, like the schools, are big enough that it could take us weeks to do.”
Rubio notes that a T8 lamp burns 32 watts of power compared to the LED replacement which burns at 17 watts. Some of the 400-watt lights are being swapped out for 60-70 watt replacements. LADWP estimates that the amount of energy savings is equivalent to taking 39,000 homes off the grid and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 90,000 metric tons per year. The clients, meanwhile, have seen their energy bills drop by as much as 40 percent.
“That’s a much bigger bang for their buck, a lot more savings,” Rubio said.
When On Target began the work, the company used six energy service representatives (EDSR) working the retrofitting jobs. As the program ramped up, the number of workers – all of them Local 11 apprentices, journeymen, and foremen of course – grew to between 30 and 40.
“Historically, the retrofitting market has been non-union,” Rubio said. “Since this program has come out, it’s been union. I’ve been Local 11 since 1995 so I wouldn’t go hire non-union guys now that I’m a business owner.”
