BOMA members as a whole are very up-to-date on advances in the lighting industry but we continue to be surprised by the volume of outdated lighting systems that still exist — especially at a time when incentives are easily available, and make your ROI, or return on investment, too good to ignore. Since studies back this assertion up, I’d like you to use this article as a sort of checklist, to make sure you’re putting your $ in your property and not in the utilities pocket!

Hours of operation

This is the first thing you want to assess since the more hours your lights are used, the better your ROI. For example, you could have the most inefficient lighting but if it’s scarcely used, it’ll have a poor ROI.

Parking garages

If you manage a parking garage, this is generally the best ROI due to hours of operation, quantity of fixtures, life expectancies of old systems, and wattage reductions possible. In garages, there are typically three options you’ll want to consider: fluorescent, induction, and LED. Each have different price points, life expectancies, and options that allow dimming or occupancy sensing to allow you to customize an installation that fits your particular needs.

Offices

Offices have four main areas of focus:

1. Fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling: Many offices still have T12 lamps. If you do, you’re probably aware these lamps are no longer produced and only a small stock is left, which means prices will continue to increase. Regardless of this, these are big energy wasters and provide excellent ROI when retrofitted to the newest T8 technology. Even if you do currently have T8’s, there are newer ones that reduce energy even further as well as increase life. LED’s are also coming down in price in this segment, and these can reduce energy approximately 50 percent while providing a new, vibrant look to your office.

2. Incandescent or halogen light bulbs in your can fixtures: Many of you have already converted these to CFL lamps over the past years, but it’s time to look at this again. LED prices in these areas have come down and there are many quality products in this category to consider. LED’s can reduce energy approximately 50 percent and increase life expectancy by approximately five times.

The best way to save energy is to not use fixtures at all, which is where the next two options come into play:

3. Occupancy sensors are widely installed in bathrooms, but if that’s the only area you’re using them you’re probably missing out on a simple way to reduce energy. They’re great for offices, meeting rooms, computer rooms, storage rooms, etc., that have intermittent usage.

4. Daylight harvesting controls are controls used by windows that allow the fixtures to be dimmed or turned off when enough ambient light is coming through the windows.

Warehousing and industrial properties

These two type of buildings offer excellent ROI, especially when operating two or three shifts. In the past, T12 eight-foot fixtures were the norm followed by HID Metal Halides. If your facilities have either, I urge you to look at your options which will typically be T5 or T8 fluorescent fixtures. That being said, there are other options such as induction or LED to consider as well.

Signage

You may not maintain a lot of signage, but the real story here is service costs, not energy. For the past few decades, signs have been manufactured to be less expensive and more profitable, thus access to the lamps, ballasts, and wires have become more difficult — which means it takes the technician longer to make repairs. This is one area LEDs quickly became cost effective; once your signs are retrofitted to LEDs you’re facilities will have signage that operates more consistently and less expensively.

Parking lot lighting

Unless you recently changed your parking lot lighting, they’re most likely Metal Halide (MH) or High Pressure Sodium (HPS). HPSs are the orange-colored lights, which are now the minority in parking lots since they don’t offer good color rendition and just don’t make most properties look as good as they could. MHs are the white lights which are now in the majority of parking lots. Both do an excellent job of illuminating parking lots, but for awhile now there are other options to reduce the energy in your parking lots.

First, the most cost-effective option is to change the ballast and lamp in the fixture to Pulse Start MH. If you stay with an equal wattage, you won’t save energy, but you’ll gain light output, if that’s what you parking lot needs. If existing output is good, then you can save energy by employing a lamp and ballast of a lesser wattage. For instance, you could change a 400 watt MH fixture to a 320 watt Pulse Start MH. If you want to further reduce energy and increase life expectancy, LED is something you’ll want to consider. LEDs when used properly, do an excellent job of lighting a parking lot and do reduce energy by approximately 50 percent. They’re also great at cutting off light spillage in case you have residential neighbors.

Just be aware that although the price points of LED fixtures are dropping, they’re still at the point it’s generally difficult to produce a good ROI. Also be aware that although the LEDs may have a long life expectancy, the driver that powers the LEDs don’t have the same life as the lamps and typically have a life expectancy of 50,000 hours. This is important to know because many LED companies are basing their ROI on energy and reduced maintenance and these numbers are likely to be inflated based on how they figure maintenance savings.

Rebates/incentives

If you receive your electricity from ComEd, you’re eligible for rebates from two programs. First is the Nexant program, which is for facilities with less than 100kW usage per month. For those that use more than 100kW per month, there’s the Smart Ideas Program. Both require a qualified company that has been authorized to run both programs, and both are options you definitely want to consider. They run in program years from June 1st to May 31st and can change throughout the program year. These programs are designed to reduce consumption on the existing electrical infrastructure. Once it’s determined incentives no longer need to be provided, these programs will disappear, so don’t wait until it’s too late to take advantage of them.

Many BOMA members have office buildings with multiple tenants and if each space is metered separately, the kW for that particular space is what will determine which program you’d be eligible for. This means that although you have a large office building, you may be able to take advantage of the larger incentives available on the Nexant program. In some cases, we’ve also been able to provide Nexant retrofits so the client only pays a small amount for recyclables.

Dave Fitzgerald can be reached at (630) 327-6251 or Dave@fitzgeraldlighting.com.