Skip to main content

Coca-Cola Enterprises to Cut Electricity Use by 5.6M KWH a Year in California

The production, distribution and marketing firm that bottles Coca-Cola products expects to slash its consumption as a result of an energy efficiency overhaul of lighting systems at 24 facilities in the state.

Coca-Cola Enterprises expects to slash its consumption of electricity by 5.6 million kilowatt-hours a year as a result of an energy efficiency overhaul of lighting systems at 24 facilities in the state.

The new lighting by Orion Energy Systems has the potential of cutting electricity use by an estimated 113 million kWh across its 20-year life, according to the lighting technology company and Coca-Cola Enterprises, the production, distribution and marketing firm that bottles Coca-Cola products.

In the energy efficiency retrofit project, the lighting company replaced more than 4,000 high-intensity discharge and fluorescent lights with the Orion Compact Modular high-intensity fluorescent system at the Coca-Cola Enterprises' sites.

The 5.6 million kWh annual reduction in energy consumption prevents the release of an estimated 3,715 tons of carbon dioxide each year, the lighting and bottling firms said, attributing the equivalency to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The energy efficiency resulting from the lighting systems also enables Coca-Cola Enterprises to avoid the release of an estimated 15 tons of sulfur dioxide a year and reduce the release of nitrogen oxides by an estimated 5 tons a year.

The lighting company presented its Orion Energy Systems Environmental Stewardship Award to Coca-Cola Enterprises in a ceremony Friday at the bottling firm's facility in Downey, California, on Friday. Elected officials and representatives of local, state and federal offices and Southern California Edison attended the event.

Campbell Hawkins, the energy efficiency manager for South California Edison, praised Coca-Cola Enterprises and Orion Energy Systems for working to take load off the state's electrical grid.

"What we are experiencing here today is a major paradigm shift," California State Senator Alan Lowenthal said at the ceremony. "Corporate citizens such as Coca-Cola Enterprises and Orion Energy Systems are saying the solution to pollution is prevention. The solution to pollution is sustainability. The solution to pollution is reducing our carbon footprint."

Energy conservation and climate change make up one of the Coca-Cola Enterprises' three strategic focus areas that are related to the environment. The other two areas are water stewardship and sustainable packaging / recycling. The company's other environmental efforts in efficiency and climate change include installing solar panels on its Los Angeles facility and setting a goal of making all sales and marketing equipment roughly 20 percent more energy efficient by 2010. The company also has 142 hybrid electric delivery trucks, the largest fleet of its kind in North America. Ten of the hybrid trucks operate in Los Angeles.

More on this topic