Case study · Food & fresh produce
Executive summary
Cape Town Market is a fresh produce wholesale market: trading starts in the small hours, buyers grade fruit and vegetables by eye, and the halls are lit long before the city is awake. A general lighting improvement across the facility removed an estimated 163,872 kWh a year, a reduction of about 74%, and released an estimated 43 kVA of maximum demand, paying for itself in an estimated 10 months. It is the largest percentage reduction and the shortest payback in our published set.
163872kWh
Energy saved per year
(estimated)
73.7%
Reduction in lighting
energy (estimated)
10mo
Payback on the
retrofit (estimated)
169tCO₂e
Carbon avoided per
year (estimated)
43.0kVA
Maximum demand
released (estimated)
Figures are estimates derived from project close-out data and standard operating assumptions. They will vary with tariff, run hours and site conditions, and are indicative of this project rather than a guarantee of results on another site.
The project
A produce market has a lighting requirement most buildings do not: colour judgement. Buyers assess ripeness, grade and defect by eye, at speed, in volume, and they do it in the dark hours. Lighting that renders colour poorly does not merely look bad; it changes what people are willing to pay for a pallet.
The operating pattern is punishing. Trading runs through the night and into the morning, so the halls carry a long lit period every day of the week. That is precisely the profile that makes inefficient lighting expensive and efficient lighting valuable.
The existing installation was consuming an estimated 222,228 kWh a year to light a facility that was, by the measure that matters to a buyer, not especially well lit.
The brief was framed as a general lighting improvement rather than as an energy project, which is the right way round for this building. The objective was better light for grading, with the energy reduction as the outcome that funded it.
Because the starting installation was both inefficient and poorly matched to the task, the improvement and the saving pulled in the same direction rather than against each other. That is unusual: in most retrofits, better light and less energy are a trade-off to be managed. Here the legacy installation was far enough behind current product that both moved at once.
The result is an estimated 74% reduction in lighting energy on a facility that is better lit for the work being done in it.
Why it worked
Carried forward
Write the brief around the task the building performs. Cape Town Market was scoped as a lighting improvement and returned the largest energy reduction in the set. Scoping it as an energy project would have produced a worse building and, very probably, a smaller number.
Supporting references
Tell us the areas, the hours they run, the lux you need to hit and your capex envelope. We'll come back inside the week with a design, a fitting schedule and a payback model.
Related: Logistics & warehousing LED