Steel manufacturer switches over to LED

Earlier this year, steel manufacturer Gerdau began searching for a lighting solution for its facility located in Knoxville, Tennessee. The company was looking for a solution to replace the metal halide fixtures and withstand the heat of its facilities, while maintaining enough lumens to create visibility in its dimly lit locations.

With over 45,000 employees, the company has industrial operations in 14 countries - in the Americas, Europe and Asia - which together represent an installed capacity of over 25 million metric tons of steel per year.

Gerdau’s Knoxville steel mill in the Lonsdale community has operated for 110 years under various names and owners, and Gerdau took over the mill’s operations in 1999 and employs nearly 240 local residents there.

The steel re-bar company reached out to EverLast Lighting to find a solution that would meet their lighting specifications where LED had failed. “Gerdau had tried to replace the metal halide fixtures with different LED lines in all three of their plant locations in Knoxville, and were not pleased with the performance of the LEDs,” explained Bruce Sizemore, Representative of Sizemore Performance located in Walland, Tennessee. “Based on their findings, we knew that we had to find a fixture that would be able to perform in their facility, with little maintenance.”

Specifically, the LED fixtures were not able to withstand the heat or the environment of the Gerdau facilities. “The ceilings in the plant are about 140-160° and the lens on the LED fixtures began to melt off,” explained Steve Trefethen, green technician at Gerdau Steel. “We also have a lot of steel dust that floats in our air and eventually the dust begins to compile onto each fixture. The result of the weight of the compiled dust ultimately unhinged each fixture from the area it was installed sending it crashing to floor.”

As a result of the LEDs failing to meet specifications, Gerdau moved forward with replacing several hundred metal halide fixtures with EverLast induction high-bay fixtures and were very pleased. “In addition to a plethora of product and application issues, the LED was extremely expensive, and the light output was not as optimal as the EverLast Induction fixtures. Furthermore, Gerdau needed a fixture that was compatible with DC power, and we were able to convert from AC to DC with the EverLast line pretty easily,” commented Sizemore.

EverLast induction light fixtures last up to 100,000 hours, which is double the life of an LED. They are also available with a dimmable option, providing even more energy savings while areas are vacant. “Gerdau is now enjoying about a 70% savings on their overall energy consumption compared to their previous fixtures, and are very pleased with the induction technology,” stated Sizemore.

The EverLast high-bay fixtures are commonly used in large-scale facilities and can be found installed in COBO Hall in Detroit, Michigan, the Tulsa Expo Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers in Green Bay, Wisconsin