The Elliott Community’s saveONenergy™ Retrofit Incentive Event!

The Elliott Community, Guelph’s only non-for-profit organization to offer seniors four levels of care, is pleased to announce the completion of one of Ontario’s larger lighting retrofit project for 2015 focused on the replacement of its entire lighting solution with LED fixtures. 

Today, senior staff of the local utility, Guelph Hydro Electric Systems Inc., administrator of the provincially-wide saveONenergy™ programs, were at The Elliott Community at 170 Metcalfe Street to present Trevor Lee, CEO and senior staff with a cheque in the amount of Three Hundred Ten Thousand Five Hundred Eighty Three Dollars and Sixty Eight Cents ($310,583.68).

“We are thrilled with this project, our Board of Trustees unanimously approved the business plan to proceed with this project in December 2014 and over the next four months and over 2,000 fixtures later, we completed the retrofit project,” says Trevor Lee, CEO.

The project involved an initial outlay of approximately $600,000 for the purchase and installation of the fixtures throughout the building at 170 Metcalfe Street including exterior lighting. Through the saveONenergy™ program, The Elliott Community qualified for the rebate. nearly 900,000 KWH will be saved; per year; this is the equivalent to the energy consumption of 56 homes or the average fuel consumed by 131 passenger vehicles, per year.

“This was our largest capital project for 2015 and although there could be frustrations with replacing over 2,000 lighting fixtures across the building, the installers systematically went through the building in stages and there was very little interruption,” says Dean Broughton, Director of Environmental Services.

LED Lighting also provided an added benefit in this installation; not only is it a more efficient form of lighting, it is also more effective for application in a setting where seniors have vision impairments. “With this LED project, the lighting in the resident spaces has resulted in a much brighter environment which means that our residents have better vision acuity. Visual impairments can be a major contributor to the risk of falls,” added Sherri Enns, Administrator of the long-term care residence.

Congrats to all involved!

Cam