Stop & Shop Nabs $4m in Incentives for Lighting and ECMs

Stop & Shop has cut costs and received over $4 million in utility incentives through use of efficient lighting and electronically-commutated motors (ECMs) at hundreds of stores and warehouses, the company has announced.

Bluestone Energy Services installed and replaced lighting fixtures with energy-efficient LEDs. At Stop & Shop stores in North Kingstown and North Providence, Rhode Island, Bluestone Energy completed a range of infrastructure upgrades that resulted in an annual savings of over 343,000 kWh and an average ROI of less than two years, the companies said.

In Smithtown, N.Y., Bluestone Energy completed similar retrofits, resulting in a savings of over 121,000 kWh in a single store.

Stop & Shop has been working with Bluestone Energy for four years and says the company has consistently delivered a low ROI, allowing the supermarket to pass savings on to customers. This year Bluestone will provide services for additional Stop & Shop locations throughout the Northeast.

Norwell, Massachusetts-based Bluestone is a division of OpTerra Energy Group. It has worked with a variety of companies including American Airlines, Biogen Idec and Genesis Management Group.

Last February Stop & Shop announced that a 400 kW fuel cell is providing 95 percent of the electricity for one of its supermarket in Connecticut. In 2010 it announced the installation of solar panels on eight of its stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, designed to reduce the energy consumption at these stores by more than seven percent.

The company has made a commitment to reduce its carbon footprint by 20 percent by 2015, using 2008 as a baseline.