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Kimco Realty Corporation’s large facility portfolio could be considered quite challenging to some organizations trying to reduce energy savings, but Kimco was able to provide upgrades to 160 sites across 25 states over 2 years. The 50-year old real estate investment trust based in New Hyde Park, New York was a 2014 Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign winner for Largest Absolute Number of Facility Upgrades. Kimco has reduced their lighting energy usage primarily through the use of lighting controls for their parking lots representing approximately 51
million square feet of parking area. Kimco, which owns and operates over 800 shopping centers in North and South America, can add their LEEP accomplishments to their 2013 National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) award for leadership in sustainability and energy efficiency.

Regency Centers is a national owner, operator, and developer of neighborhood and community shopping centers with over 300 properties throughout the United States. Regency Centers recently upgraded the parking lot lighting at Rona Plaza in Santa Ana, California. Rona Plaza is a grocery-anchored shopping center with 52,000 square-feet of gross lettable area and 250 parking spaces across 77,000 square feet of parking area. Regency Centers retrofitted the existing parking lot and exterior wall mounted fixtures, which were high-intensity discharge (HID) fixtures, with high efficiency LED fixtures coupled with a wireless dimming system. The retrofit resulted in energy savings of nearly 88% compared to pre-existing conditions and was recognized by the Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign with the Highest Percentage Energy Savings in a Retrofit at a Single Parking Area award.

The second largest gaming company in the world by revenue, MGM Resorts International (MGM) has recently installed energy efficient parking area lighting and controls at 65% of its U.S. facilities. With 20 U.S. facilities in NV, MI, and MS, MGM lighting projects have covered more than 8 million square feet of parking area. By replacing more than 4,400 existing metal halide and high-pressure sodium light fixtures in the parking facilities with a mixture of LED and induction fixtures, MGM saved 4.5 million kWh per year across their portfolio.

Most impressively, at the MGM Grand Detroit Casino–a 401-room hotel and gaming facility— the company achieved 4 million kWh of annual energy savings by replacing medium-wattage metal halide fixtures in a 2.6 million square foot parking structure with high efficiency, low- wattage LED fixtures.

Retail buildings in the U.S. are second only to office buildings in total energy consumption and represent approximately 13% of energy use in commercial buildings nationwide. The Advanced Energy Retrofit Guide for Retail Buildings presents general project planning guidance as well as more detailed descriptions and financial payback metrics for the most important and relevant energy efficiency measures to provide a practical roadmap for effectively planning and implementing performance improvements in existing buildings. This guide is primarily designed for facility managers and energy managers of existing retail buildings of all sizes.

This paper illustrates the challenges of integrating rigorous daylight and electric lighting simulation data with whole-building energy models, and defends the need for such integration in order to achieve aggressive energy savings in building designs. Through a case study example, we examine the ways daylighting – and daylighting simulation – drove the design of a large net-zero energy project.