Cleveland State University
IN-4: Innovation 4

The Exterior LED Lighting Upgrade project at Cleveland State University was a significant part of an even larger 42 million dollar Campus-Wide Energy Conservation and Management Program which focused on sustainability and energy efficiency across the entire CSU Campus. This program is entirely self-funded through guaranteed energy and maintenance savings, to provide CSU with significantly improved facility systems at no net cost.

The Exterior LED Lighting Upgrade project is the very first of its kind in the country, looking at all of CSU’s exterior lighting systems across the campus. The final project scope includes complete retrofits and replacements of parking lot lighting, parking garage lighting, and walkway and sidewalk lighting throughout the entire CSU campus, totaling nearly 1700 new Exterior LED fixtures. In all, this project changed the quality and efficiency of lighting systems in 5 covered parking garages, 10 surface parking lots, and more than 2.5 miles of walkways, sidewalks, and plazas. As a result of this project, today, an estimated 75% of all exterior lighting on the 85 acre urban campus has been converted to LED. This scope size makes this project:

• The Largest Parking Lot LED Retrofit project in the US.
• The Largest University Exterior LED Retrofit in the US.
• The Largest Exterior LED Retrofit Project in the US. (Non Municipal Street Lighting)

Not only is this project innovative because of its size, but also because of the utility savings and better visual environment generated as a result of increased efficiency and proper optical control. Because of the Exterior LED Lighting Upgrade project, CSU’s electrical load was reduced by 196,000 watts with a total reduction in consumption of over 1 million kilowatt-hours, a 54% reduction in usage over the previous lighting technologies.