Contacts:
Dan Tambellini
LarsonO’Brien PR for Lutron
412.571.1600
dan@larsonobrien.com
Mike Llewellyn
Lutron Electronics
610.282.8773
mllewellyn@lutron.com
Forward-Thinking California School District Chooses Lutron’s Lighting Controls to Cut Energy Use and to Improve the Learning Environment
The Balance LC™ Technology Already Slotted for Three School Projects
Coopersburg, PA – The cutting edge lighting control system installed in the newly opened Lisa J. Mails Elementary School in Murrieta, CA is gaining attention from education officials for its ability to improve the learning environment while substantially reducing energy consumption.
The Lisa J. Mails school, part of the Murrieta Valley Unified School District, relies on the Balance LC™ lighting control technology manufactured by Lutron Electronics Co., Inc., the world leader in the design and manufacturing of lighting control solutions for residential, commercial and educational applications.
The school district also has specified Lutron’s Balance LC lighting control package for an adjacent middle school, set to be complete at the end of 2008, and for another elementary school, still in the design stages.
“In selecting Lutron’s advanced lighting system,“ said Assistant Superintendent of Facilities Bill Olien, “we wanted our facilities to be energy efficient and we wanted to improve the learning environment for the students.”
Lutron’s Balance LC technology even prompted a comment from California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O'Connell, who issued a statement recognizing the school’s “energy-efficient innovations.”
The $30-million Lisa J. Mails ES campus encompasses 70,030 square feet of space in eight buildings on 16.66 acres, with a current enrollment of 776 students K-6. Lisa J. Mails ES is now the district’s 11th elementary school.
The district is part of a community that has seen an explosion in population growth the last 25 years, advancing from 2,200 residents in 1980 to nearly 100,000 in 2007.
The school district is on a fast-track building plan to keep up, and includes among its strategic goals the kind of forward-thinking values expected in California: “Design and/or expand technology systems and facilities to effectively meet student and staff needs in a 21st century environment.”
“The school district made it clear they wanted this school to allow as much natural light in as possible to benefit the students and to save energy,” said Natalie Riley, the Project Manager for WLC Architects, Inc. of Rancho Cucamonga, CA. WLC Architects specializes in K-12 education projects and often works with Lighting Designer/Electrical Engineer Irwan Yowanto, PE, LC, of CWA & Associates, Inc., also of Rancho Cucamonga.
Yowanto said when he learned what the school district had set as its design objectives for the Lisa Mails school, he quickly decided to recommend Lutron’s Balance LC controls to achieve those goals.
“Each classroom has five circular skylights, which transition to a 2 x 2 lens at the ceiling, to let in natural light whenever possible,” said Yowanto. “But to fully take advantage of this situation, you need the Balance LC lighting control system, which can sense how much natural daylight is pouring into each space and then adjusts the electric light levels accordingly—
Lutron’s Balance LC lighting controls can offer school districts a panoply of energy-savings strategies that also contribute to an improved learning environment—
Balance LC significantly contributes to an improved learning environment and achieves high energy savings—reducing a building’s lighting energy use up to 60 percent or more.
Sue Ackley, a fourth-grade teacher at Lisa J. Mails Elementary, with 18 years of classroom experience, said, “I hope I never have to teach in another room without the lighting system used at Mails. The lighting system makes each day brighter in more ways than one. It not only fills the rooms with natural light that is much better on the children’s eyes while working, but it makes the room seem more cheerful because it brings the sunshine in. It just feels better.”
About Lutron: Lutron Electronics Co., Inc. (www.lutron.com)
Photos: http://www.larsonobrien.com/
