Green Restaurant Uses LED Lights to Save Money

MADISON, WI – The Glass Nickel Pizza Co. restaurant at 2916 Atwood has converted to a higher level of green technology by using light-emitting diode (LED) lights instead of the more expensive and less energy efficient fluorescent or incandescent lights.

Owners Tim Nicholson and Brian Glassel quickly grasped the significant financial payback of using LED lights. “If you look at the cost savings, it’s incredible,” says Nicholson. “There’s a 2.5 to 3 year pay off – the savings are incredible. We’ve been looking at any way to save money and save energy simply because it’s a wise business move. It’s also a sustainable effort and by doing so we’re being a good corporate neighbor.”

The lights don’t look different from those in any other restaurant, so the sustainable effort and financial savings don’t detract from the restaurant’s ambience. The dining and bar areas are outfitted with LED lights; outfitting the adjacent corporate office with LEDs will be completed soon.

Rob Everhart, president of Energy Tech Solutions, LLC in Madison, WI, shepherded the restaurant’s efforts. “LED lamps last five times longer than other lamps,” says Everhart. “One LED lamp will last 50,000 hours. An incandescent bulb will only last 1,000 hours, and a compact fluorescent will last 10,000. And since LEDs use 10 times less energy than an incandescent, the LEDs are far more energy efficient.” The equivalent of a 60- watt incandescent or fluorescent bulb is a 6-watt LED. There’s also less labor to replace bulbs which means less maintenance expenses.

According to Everhart, the lights in the popular basement bar will pay for themselves in just less than two years and will have a 51 percent return on investment. The lights in the dining area will have payback in just over a year and a half, with a 64 percent return on investment. Compared to what the restaurant was using, the annual savings for energy costs of all the LED lights will be $2,660 per year.

Nicholson is so pleased with the win-win of using LED lights in his restaurant that he is willing to speak with any other interested owners about the cost savings. “By sharing our story, my hope is that other businesses will follow,” says Nicholson.

There are seven Glass Nickel restaurants in Wisconsin, most of which are in Dane County. Nicholson’s longterm dream is to make the Atwood restaurant a flagship of environmental sustainability and cost savings for future Glass Nickel franchises; using LED lights is the first step in that process. “It’s the wave of the future,” says Nicholson. He envisions electric cars for pizza delivery, solar hot water heater, possibly even a windmill in the parking lot. Whether or not methods like wind mills will prove to be practical at that location is unknown, but the cost savings and corporate stewardship of using LED lights is clearly established at the Glass Nickel.