The Ohio State University at Marion
IN-24: Innovation A

Within the past several years, the Marion Campus, consisting of OSU at Marion and co-located partner Marion Technical College, have worked together to complete projects for sustainability and energy savings in accordance with HB251. Within the past year, the Marion campus installed the ROAM system, by Acuity Brands. This is a wireless outdoor management system to control flexible scheduling of exterior campus lighting. The system minimizes maintenance costs, optimizes energy use, and provides a safe nighttime environment on the Marion campus. It is expandable to control 2,000 fixtures, but only 200 campus fixtures are, or will be, under the control of the system. By use of a wireless node installed on each LED fixture, the ROAM system controls the “on/off” or “dusk-to-dawn” function per fixture. The nodes install in a 3 or 5 pin adaptor in each fixture. So far the campus reduces parking lot lighting to keep only a few light fixtures on for the night, weekends, and holidays when the campus is vacant. The parking lots are not used after 10 p.m. since the Marion campus is a commuter campus and not residential. Another feature of the ROAM system is its ability to report any individual light fixture as non-functioning and submit work orders which saves time by maintenance to visually check the fixtures daily. The computer shows the exact location and performance of each light fixture with colored icons indicating operational performance over 24 hours. The calendar control lets the campus set up operational schedules for fixture groups or full system operation. The system tracts burn-hours and energy use per fixture too. For the fixtures controlled by the ROAM system, the savings is approximately 91,651 KWH per year on average.