Chances are good that your easiest opportunity for monthly savings is right overhead. Lighting accounts for 20% of electricity usage in a typical commercial building. That’s nothing to sneeze at. If you could cut that back, why not go for it?

According to research conducted by Navigant, more than 960 million linear fluorescent units are in use in the United States right this minute. They make up about 75% of working fixtures.

Meanwhile, the significantly more energy-efficient LED units account for less than 0.1% of fixtures installed in commercial buildings in 2012. In other words, there’s a lot of room for improvement (and savings) through LED installation, and we’re here to help.

For 2015, we added interior LED incentives to our prescriptive lighting program, including several troffer LED lighting options, and our custom incentive program can be utilized for LEDs that aren’t on our prescriptive list, like LED tubes (with pre-approval, of course, as is the case for all custom incentive projects).

Currently, three types of LED tubes are available:

• Most operate off the existing fluorescent ballast and are instant-start. These provide easy installation and low labor cost but may present compatibility issues, and they limit control capabilities.
• Others are wired to the main line voltage and thus may require some major reworking of the existing fixture, which presents safety issues and can again limit control capability.
• Some options are wired to the external driver. These provide the best option for control and efficacy but may depend on additional components.

Remember, to earn any LED lighting incentive, upgrades must be ENERGY STAR® approved (for screw-in bulbs) or Design Lights Consortium qualified for non-screw-in bulbs.

We can help with the details. Just contact your local Energy Advisor to find out how LED upgrades might help you save money and energy, earn incentives, and change out your bulbs a lot less often.