Lighting controls in Memphis and West Tennessee

Why Memphis is a controls market

Memphis is one of the country’s major freight hubs, where the river, rail lines, interstates, and an air cargo hub meet. The result is a metro full of large distribution buildings, many built or expanded in the last two decades, and many running more than one shift. Across the state line, Southaven and Olive Branch have their own concentration of big-box warehouses.

These buildings share a profile: tall ceilings, long aisles, large lighting loads, and long operating hours, with most of the floor empty at any given moment. That makes them some of the best candidates for networked controls and luminaire-level control anywhere in our region. Our warehouse and cold storage page covers the sequences in detail.

What we find in Memphis-area buildings

• LED retrofits without real controls. Many buildings converted to LED for the energy savings and stopped there. Adding sensors and networked control to existing LED fixtures is often the logical next project.
• Early wireless systems out of support. Some early adopters now run platforms whose manufacturers have exited the business or discontinued the line.
• Sensors that no longer match the racking. Buildings get re-racked as tenants change, and sensors placed for the last layout watch the wrong aisles.
• Cold storage for food distribution, where freezer suits hide body heat from sensors and every watt of light is also refrigeration load.
• Older buildings downtown and in Midtown, converted to offices and mixed use, where wireless controls avoid opening plaster ceilings.

Climate

Memphis summers are long, hot, and humid. Roof decks in unconditioned warehouses can be much hotter than the floor, so we check every sensor’s and node’s temperature rating against conditions at the deck. Spring storm season brings power interruptions, and we specify and test how each zone behaves when power returns, so a building doesn’t come back fully lit at 3 a.m. or, worse, dark at a shift change.

Utilities and incentives

MLGW distributes TVA power across Memphis and Shelby County, so TVA EnergyRight is the usual program there. Jackson and much of the rest of West Tennessee are served by other TVA local power companies. EnergyRight requires pre-approval before equipment is purchased and gives additional credit for networked controls. We prepare the application package and coordinate with your local power company and program staff.

On the Mississippi side, the meter decides. DeSoto County addresses may be served by a TVA local power company or by Entergy Mississippi, and the programs differ, so we confirm the utility from your bill before planning around an incentive.

Energy code adoption varies across Tennessee and Mississippi and between jurisdictions, so we confirm requirements with the authority having jurisdiction on each project.

How we work from Tupelo

Memphis is about two hours from our office on I-22, Olive Branch and Southaven a little less, and Jackson, Tennessee, a little over two hours by way of Corinth. We don’t pretend to be local, so we plan for the distance:

• Surveys and commissioning are scheduled in multi-day blocks.
• Submittal review, contractor coordination, and much of the configuration review happen remotely.
• Once the system is live, Lytbit Ledger monitors it, and most alerts are diagnosed before anyone gets in a truck.

For a worked example, see our representative distribution center scenario.