Electricity Conservation - Cut Lighting Costs
Reduce Your Lighting Costs - Put the Savings In Your Pocket
by Bill Field
In the business world these days, it seems all too common for costs to go up and revenue to decline. With higher prices for gasoline, utilities and insurance, small-business owners too often find themselves stretched to the limit just in order to keep their doors open. Fortunately, for some forward-thinking business executives, there are practical and available solutions that can alleviate some of these problems.
For example, wouldn’t it be pleasant and profitable, to see the company’s lighting energy costs cut in half? That actually can be accomplished quite easily. New technologies developed over the last few years have improved lighting quality to the point that energy usage by commercial enterprises can be reduced by up to a whopping 55%. And with lighting accounting for as much as one-half of the typical electric bill, it makes sound economic sense for business owners to pay attention to their lighting systems.
Businesses can save a substantial amount of money by taking advantage of the greatly improved interior and exterior lighting fixtures on the market today. Typically, the working components of a light fixture are comprised of lamps (or bulbs), sockets and ballasts.
A properly functioning lighting fixture has all these components working in concert to provide adequate illumination within a defined space. When one or more of these parts fail, the quality of lighting in a work environment can be compromised.
The entire light fixture usually is covered by a plastic lens. As these plastic covers age, they yellow and can restrict the proper distribution of light emanating from the lamps. Lighting maintenance technicians should always include cleaning and/or replacement of lenses as part of their routine service.
Earlier this year, Affiliated Dialysis Center in Creve Coeur was experiencing a tremendous number of ballast failures due to the age of its lighting systems. Confronted with the dilemma of maintaining the aging equipment, Affiliated closely examined its two primary choices: Replace ballasts and lamps as they failed with the same antiquated technology, or make a wholesale change to new, energy-efficient ballasts and lamps.
After considering the relative costs associated with both choices, Affiliated decided to switch over to a new system. The location’s interior lighting system was retrofitted with new T8 lamps that are warranted for three years and electronic ballasts that carry a five-year warranty. The installation was accomplished so as to amortize the total costs of the retrofit in terms of energy and maintenance savings in less than two years.
Additionally, Affiliated Hospital Dialysis Center is guaranteed to have no maintenance expenses for three years, or a full year after the cost of the retrofit is repaid from those overall savings.
This new lighting system will also improve the overall performance of existing lighting fixtures. How is this possible? Well, old ballasts in lighting fixtures are magnetic, and each ballast can power up to two lamps. With such ballasts, when one lamp goes bad, both lamps go dark. New electronic ballasts, on the other hand, power up to four lamps at a time, but only the lamp that goes bad will go dark.
The new ballasts use 110 watts per fixture as compared to 190 watts per fixture with older ballasts. The newer lamps can be expected to perform for an average life of 20,000 hours, while the ballasts have an operational life of 20 years and come with a five-year warranty. These newer-technology ballasts also produce less heat, providing a savings on air conditioning charges.
Specific types of businesses can benefit in other ways, too. Old metal halide fixtures in stores and warehouses consume an average of 465 watts, while new fixtures are available that consume an average of 220 watts. Additionally, new light fixtures provide instant illumination, whereas older fixtures can take up to 15 minutes to reach full brightness.
The City of Hazelwood learned about the efficacies of modern lighting systems recently when it purchased lighting equipment for its community center. Its existing system was comprised of a series of 400-watt, high-intensity discharge fixtures. While these were the most efficient lamps on the market 20 years ago, new technology subsequently has made them obsolete.
Economic analysis shows that Hazelwood’s change-out from its existing equipment to a new system will actually pay for itself in as little as 21 months from savings of electrical usage and subsequent charges on the monthly utility bill. Beyond the cost savings, these new systems are far quieter, as old fixtures often have a distinct hum in the ballast.
Another opportunity for business owners to reduce the monthly lighting bill is in the exit lights that are mandatory in commercial spaces. A typical exit light installed prior to the mid-1990s consumes as much as 40 watts per fixture, while new, state-of-the-art exit lights consume just four watts per fixture, a mere 10% of that absorbed by older installations.
Since exit lights are required by National Fire Protection Association codes to be lit continuously, changing from old to new can create considerable savings. And new exit lights include lamps that have an operational life span of 20 years, immensely more economical than the one-year span of older lamps.
Typical paybacks for businesses that choose to retrofit their existing lighting systems can range anywhere from two years to four years, more or less, based on actual use and electricity costs.
New commercial lighting is vastly superior, and can be much more cost-effective, than the fading systems of days gone by. These kinds of savings will brighten up any business’s bottom line.
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