PermaCold Engineering, Inc., a Portland, Ore.-based refrigeration design-build firm, and DarkSky Technologies, an LED solutions provider based in Portland, Ore., announced a formal partnership that will combine expertise in their respective fields to develop and build new custom-designed and retrofitted cold storage and food processing facilities, complete with unprecedented energy savings, operational efficiencies and long-term sustainability.

The uniqueness of the partnership lies in engineering large refrigeration systems in conjunction with a facility-wide lighting blueprint utilizing highly energy-efficient and near zero heat-producing LED components and technologies. PermaCold’s and DarkSky’s environmentally progressive engineering model aims to result in significant and long-term reductions in power consumption, negative environmental impacts and toxic materials.

“While we have been working on this unique approach over the past year, PermaCold and DarkSky Technologies felt that now was the time to make an official announcement in light of the recent Paris Climate Summit and the critical need for all of us to take action reducing our carbon footprint,” says Steve Jackson, PermaCold president and co-founder. “PermaCold is deeply committed to this ideal, and we want to lead our industry in this area as well as making a real environmental impact with every refrigerated facility we engineer going forward. Lighting, with its high energy consumption and heat output, is a vital factor.”

“DarkSky was founded with the idea of maximizing the incredible recent advances in LED technologies and their significant environmental and energy-saving benefits over traditional industrial lighting,” adds Gary Daniels, co-founder of DarkSky Technologies. “We have the expertise to be able to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint and other environmental impacts of facilities of every kind, but LEDs make a particularly large difference in refrigerated facilities. It’s valuable for the business, and it contributes to saving the planet for our grandchildren.”