SHREVEPORT, La., May 1, 2019 – Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO) presented Champion Home Builders with a $44,315.52 check for an energy saving light installation at its newest manufacturing facility in Leesville, Louisiana. This new facility boasts all LEDs (light-emitting diodes), which have much longer lifespans and very low maintenance costs compared to traditional fluorescent lighting.

More than 300 LED bulbs were installed by MJ’s Journey Electric over a period of two weeks.

For Champion Home Builders Purchasing Manager David Delrie, the math just made sense. The SWEPCO incentive helped cover some of the upfront costs of this project, which has an expected payback period of less than a year. Moving forward, the use of LED lights when compared to the use of older, inefficient lights will yield savings of approximately $38,000 a year or about $3,100 a month on their SWEPCO bill. 

Other added benefits are increased safety, productivity and comfort. “It’s a lot easier and safer to work when you can see what’s in front of you,” said Delrie.

Tom Stoneburner, Champion Home Builders General Manager, gave a tour of the facility where work is already underway. The target start date for the plant is Monday, June 3, with the goal of having the first manufactured home built entirely in this facility by the week of July 4. Starting now, Champion Home Builders expects to hire five to eight new employees every week until all 200 job openings are filled.

Champion Home Builders offers full benefits and a competitive base salary with a bonus compensation plan based on the number of homes that are manufactured each day. Once the plant is operating at full and optimal capacity, the facility will manufacture up to eight homes a day.

 “We like partnering on projects like this because when our customers do well, we do well,” said SWEPCO Energy Efficiency & Consumer Program Coordinator Jeff Thigpen. “We’re proud to help Champion Home Builders expand their business and create new jobs.”

This project is part of SWEPCO’s Commercial Solutions Program, which was developed to pay monetary incentives to commercial customers for new construction and retrofit installation of a wide range of measures that reduce demand and save energy. Incentives are based on deemed savings, or the verified demand and energy savings that occur at the customer's site.

About Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO)
SWEPCO, an American Electric Power (AEP: NYSE) company, serves 535,000 customers in western Arkansas, northwest and central Louisiana, northeast Texas and the Texas Panhandle. SWEPCO’s headquarters are in Shreveport, La. News releases and other information about SWEPCO can be found at SWEPCO.com. Connect with us at Facebook.com/SWEPCO, Twitter.com/SWEPCOnews, Youtube.com/SWEPCOtv and SWEPCOConnections.com.

About American Electric Power (AEP)
American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, is focused on building a smarter energy infrastructure and delivering new technologies and custom energy solutions to our customers. AEP’s approximately 18,000 employees operate and maintain the nation’s largest electricity transmission system and more than 219,000 miles of distribution lines to efficiently deliver safe, reliable power to nearly 5.4 million regulated customers in 11 states. AEP also is one of the nation’s largest electricity producers with approximately 32,000 megawatts of diverse generating capacity, including 4,300 megawatts of renewable energy. AEP’s family of companies includes utilities AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana, East Texas and the Texas Panhandle). AEP also owns AEP Energy, AEP Energy Partners, AEP OnSite Partners and AEP Renewables, which provide innovative competitive energy solutions nationwide.