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Use of a smart lighting control system is enabling the Rogers Centre in Toronto save more than $300,000 a year on energy costs.

The sprawling Rogers Centre (formerly called Skydome) spans around 12.7 acres.

The complex – which hosts a variety of sporting and entertainment events for anywhere from 5,000 to 60,000 spectators – contains approximately 7,000 lighting fixtures covering an area of 1.4 million square feet.

With a target of reducing overall lighting energy consumption by 50 per cent, the Centre's facility management opted for "intelligent lighting technology" from Encelium Technologies Inc. in Richmond Hill, Ont.

Prior to the Encelium retrofit, the Rogers Centre spent about $4 million a year on electricity. Lighting costs accounted for 50 per cent of the bill.

The complex that opened in 1988 was designed without taking into account the current energy crunch. In certain areas, such as the underground garage lighting, regulations required that lights be kept on 24-hours a day.

"Since the building opened, we never shut off the lights in some areas as there was simply no switch that enabled operators to dim or to turn off just a portion of the lighting," noted Moe Goldhar, manager of energy conservation for the facility.

The Encelium system offers this capability.

Encelium has also integrated a host of motion, light and sound detectors, and enables operators to monitor and control lighting from a single desktop interface.

Each lighting fixture in the system is hooked up to a communications protocol similar to an Internet protocol address. "Users actually communicate with every light bulb via the Internet," said Encelium co-founder Terry Mocherniack.

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