Genesis HealthCare is one of the nation’s largest long-term care and rehabilitation therapy providers, employing over 34,000 people. It has over 200 skilled nursing centers and assisted living communities in 12 eastern states, while its Genesis Rehabilitation Services division provides contract therapy to over 650 health care providers in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

Genesis HealthCare needed to reduce ongoing operational expenses and energy costs and created a Cost Reduction initiative to accomplish this goal. They contracted with Constellation Energy's Projects & Services Group (CEPS) to implement a program that would achieve their economic and operational goals.

Genesis and CEPS identified 30 sites in six states—Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island—with the highest utility rates and generous electric conservation programs. CEPS performed detailed audits at each of these sites, reviewing utility bills, interviewing facility staff, counting more than 40,000 lamps and 16,000 ballasts and filing all the paperwork required by each of the 12 separate utility programs.

To achieve the energy efficiency goals, CEPS implemented a comprehensive retrofit program, removing and replacing inefficient lamps, ballast and fixtures with state of the art upgrades. High efficiency T8, Super T8 and screw-in compact fluorescent lamps replaced aging T12 and incandescent lamps. U-bend and 8' lamps were replaced with straight fluorescent lamps. During this phase of the project CEPS also coordinated all the recycling of the PCB and non-PCB containing ballast and mercury containing fluorescent lamps, which resulted in significant environmental benefits for the program.

To reduce ongoing operation and maintenance costs, CEPS lighting design teams drew up a materials standardization plan that utilized only three fluorescent lamps (2', 3' & 4') and eight ballast selections for the entire portfolio of projects. As part of the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) detail, CEPS created a process whereby each facility could purchase all required lighting spare stock from the retrofit distributor at pre-determined competitive prices, allowing Genesis to obtain volume discounts on all stocked parts.

Altogether, the award-winning program reduced energy consumption by the lighting systems at all 30 facilities by an average of 47 percent—the equivalent annual energy consumption of 392 single family homes.

Genesis HealthCare’s general financial criterion was that each project had a payback period of three years or less. CEPS successfully met that requirement, with an average payback of 2.8 years and annual savings of $395,000. Utility rebates provided an additional $180,000 in savings.