The game was a proving ground for everyone involved. When the teams squared off again in 2009, Chandler’s stadium welcomed Fox Sports crews with a permanent installation of a four-pole, 72-fixture Light-Structure Green system providing 50 footcandles for football games and 25 footcandles for track meets.

Controlling Spill and Glare
According to Athletic Director Dave Shapiro, light control is very important to the school’s community image. Shapiro was excited to introduce the new upgrade to neighbors in the residential area surrounding the stadium — some as close as 30 yards — who’d become understandably irritated from enduring more than a decade of glare.

Light-Structure Green’s advanced spill and glare feature allowed the school to reduce light trespass by 50 percent compared to typical floodlighting systems. “The light is now directed onto the field, and we’re not lighting the neighborhood,” said Shapiro, “I remember one neighbor saying it was nice not to have his bedroom lit up until the games were over at the stadium anymore.”

Cutting Energy and Maintenance
Arizona is a leader in adopting green methods and technologies. Chandler’s endorsement of environmental initiatives with the investment in Light-Structure Green was smart on several fronts, especially as new policies went into effect in 2009. The state announced an energy rate increase at the same time a state-funded energy program that covered school districts’ energy consumption overages was discontinued. “The school districts are having to pay for all of their excess usage, so they’ve become much more serious about their energy savings,” Musco representative Kurt Palmer said.

The new system, which allows 40 percent fewer luminaires than typical floodlighting, will help answer these energy demands. Based on 400 hours of use annually, the school will save more than $144,000 in total life-cycle cost saving, with $73,000 in energy costs alone over the next 25 years with Light-Structure Green.

The athletic budget’s maintenance costs will be minimized as a result of Constant 25™, Musco’s 25-year product assurance and warranty program. The warranty eliminates any maintenance costs due to normal spot outages and group lamp replacements. It also guarantees Constant Light™ levels for the life of the system. Said Acuna, “Anything I do will have a 25-year warranty, because I don’t want to do extra maintenance when I don’t need to.”

Managing Schedules
Musco’s Control-Link® automated control and monitoring system will also contribute energy and labor savings to the school. Staff at Control-Link Central™ electronically monitor the lights for outages and reports those outages to the school and Musco technicians for warranty replacements. Acuna’s maintenance team is now free to focus on other facility issues.

Control-Link’s on/off control feature allows for automated scheduling, saving even more energy and related costs. “We do about 85 percent of our scheduling through Control-Link, and we would probably do all of it that way if we remembered to enter the schedules,” Shapiro joked. Even when an event is missed or schedules change, parameters can be instantly modified using the toll-free call feature or online access from any remote location.

With Control-Link, school staff is now able to track usage and associated costs by specific groups. With enhanced monitoring, more time has been identified to make the stadium available for increased community use. In fact, the staff is so satisfied with Control-Link that the system has also been installed at their pool with its existing Musco lights.