Brampton Brick
– Brad Duke, Senior Vice President for Manufacturing
Problem
Brampton Brick is one of the largest brick manufacturers in North America. The company turns out more than 300 million bricks a year from its huge facility in Ontario, where material is brought in, broken down, molded into bricks and put in cars that roll through the kilns, 24/7. Machines do much of the work, but people monitor them, and old metal-halide lights were making their jobs harder. Areas were dimly lit, and the high temperatures and presence of the kilns — installed after the lights — made maintenance nearly impossible.
Solution
After testing various options, Brampton Brick chose BAS High Bay LEDs for the 400,000-sq-ft (37,200-sq-m) facility. With design assistance from GR Electric, about 300 fixtures were installed at a uniform height, despite the arched ceiling. Senior VP Brad Duke says the LEDs have improved both morale and quality control, as flaws in the bricks are easier to see. Rebates dramatically reduced Brampton Brick’s expenses, and the LEDs’ durability means years of worry-free use, during which time Brampton Brick expects to see energy savings of about $250,000 annually.
Ontario Electricity Prices Are Out Of Control
Ontarians aren’t just imagining it: Electricity prices in the province are soaring.
Prices jumped by 15.7 per cent over the past year, according to Statistics Canada’s consumer price index, about eight times faster than overall inflation.
Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter published this chart showing just how far hydro rates have diverged from other prices in the province.
Chart: Bank of Montreal
“Meantime, electricity prices in the rest of the country have posted average annual gains quite close to the overall inflation rate over these periods (i.e., roughly 2 per cent per year),” Porter wrote.
“In Ontario, only three other categories in the CPI have risen faster than electricity since 2002 — water charges, home insurance and cigarettes. But in the past seven years, nothing has risen faster than electricity prices.”
Ontario’s prices are being driven up by a number of factors, including subsidies for the province’s green energy program. The Liberal government of Premier Kathleen Wynne in recent years managed to eliminate the use of coal as a source of electricity.
