Naturex’s Brazilian plant in Manaus lights the way to reduced energy consumption
Change is underway at Naturex’s Manaus site with a new initiative that’s protecting the environment and cutting costs!
Proposed by a special committee created this year to seek out initiatives for reducing energy consumption, Naturex’s Manaus site has recently begun replacing traditional electrical lighting with solar tubes.
The equipment, consisting of an acrylic dome with protection against UV rays, a pipe with several layers of extremely polished aluminum, and a prismatic diffuser of high impact, offers a number of important benefits, including:
- Reduced electricity consumption
- Reduced environmental impact through the reduction of the consumption of equipment containing heavy metals that are harmful to the environment
- Reduced maintenance by eliminating the need to replace lamps and reactors
- Reduced exposure to UV rays
- Reduced thermal load compared to traditional light fixture operation
The Manaus team first installed the tubes in a small warehouse to test their efficiency. The results were very encouraging: the fixtures were able to replace 100% of traditional lamps from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm, providing up to 1000 lux (for comparison, a bright office only requires about 400 lux).
The team intends to significantly expand the use of the fixture by 2018, installing them in the finished product warehouse, raw material warehouse and the third floor of the production area.
Overall the changes will represent a 70% reduction in electric energy consumption for lighting in the areas where the solar tubes are installed. For example, the finished product and raw material warehouses and third floor of the production area will reduce their energy consumption from 2271 kWh/month to 617 kWh/month.