Our historic carelessness with lighting can be turned to savings in both cost and energy efficiency.

By Paul Hull

Windham Public Schools in Willimantic, CT, have undertaken a 14-year energy initiative that includes the district’s six schools. One of North America’s leading energy service providers, ConEdison Solutions, will play a key role in the conservation program that includes the installation of high-efficiency lighting at the six schools. It will improve the quality of the lighting and save about 638,500 kWh of electricity.

One reason why recommended changes in lighting equipment and installations do not receive the enthusiastic public support seems to be that people are in a somewhat skeptical mood. We do not trust all suggestions for change, we do not trust all grand schemes touted nationally, we do not trust those who can get us amazing deals (in mortgages, airport security, and miraculous software) because we suspect the only beneficiaries will be those who make and sell the recommended products. Changes in our lighting habits are not like that. They are not political, nor should they be labeled partisan. The changes recommended for lighting installations will bring financial and environmental benefits to almost anybody today.

At what may be considered the other end of the social scale from our schools, grand hotels are changing their curricula. The New York Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square, with almost 2,000 rooms, undertook a lighting upgrade that reduced energy consumption by approximately 790,000 kWh per year. “The New York Marriott Marquis deserves the praise of all New Yorkers for its role as an energy leader,” commented JoAnn F. Ryan, then-president and chief executive officer of ConEdison Solutions, a partner in the hotel’s program of energy efficiency. “By committing to energy efficiency, the hotel is contributing to energy reliability in Manhattan and improving the environment, while reducing operating costs.”

Schools, hotels … what about supermarkets? Whatever our age or financial status, we use them, and may benefit from their savings. Boyer’s Food Markets serve Pennsylvania, with 17 supermarkets since the first corner store in 1949. Until recently, most of the stores kept their T-12 fluorescent lighting. A few stores had fixtures installed, which ran across the aisles and caused light levels to fluctuate as customers walked down the aisle. Some stores had fixtures that did not provide adequate light levels to showcase products. And there was always the problem that the incandescent lamps used for spot lighting seemed to need frequent replacement. Atlantic Energy Concepts did an in-depth lighting energy audit for each store where the owners saw problems. With energy-efficient lighting renovations completed in six of the Boyer’s Markets, the electric utility savings are nearing $45,000 annually (with paybacks in the 3-year range). To help offset the cost of the lighting upgrade, Atlantic Energy Concepts managed to get Boyer’s Markets approved for a Pennsylvania DEP energy conservation grant program.

Lights That Work and Consume All Day
The days when lighting was only a nighttime affair have vanished. “There is 24-and-seven lighting all around us,” observes Gina Rohrer White of Celadon Energy Systems. “You can see it working in office buildings, shopping centers, grocery stores, hospitals, hotels, and manufacturing plants. Celadon offers LEDs, known as CLEDS, that contain no toxic mercury and do not require special disposal as hazardous waste. We have a comprehensive array of fixtures, brightness, and spectral content to meet the needs of commercial, residential, government, and agricultural clients. CLEDS are 98.9% efficient and produce little or no heat. The expected half-life of our lighting is 50,000 hours or more. That’s five or ten times the life of fluorescents and up to 100 times the life of incandescents.” The energy savings seem obvious. Ponder, too, on how much maintenance (in labor and parts) will be saved by these long-lasting lighting systems.

For some companies, the warehouse is the least mentioned, often forgotten, part of the facility. For a leading home products manufacturer, Graybar had a solution. The lights were on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The 294 dual-400-watt metal halide fixtures consumed 269,304 watts. “Watt-sucking machines” was how Graybar’s representative, Scott Boatright, described them. By replacing their inefficient fixtures with high-bay fluorescent lighting, the manufacturer could see a savings of $140,000 in the first year alone. They installed 300 Lithonia I-BEAM four-lamp T-5 fixtures with Cool Running technology. With the savings, an accelerated tax benefit from the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 2005 gave the project a payback of less than five months. Five years on, the company’s savings accumulated to $700,000, with the ROI at 1,292%. “An additional benefit was that the company could move forward with other warehouse improvement projects that they might have had to defer otherwise,” adds Boatright.

In California, Progressive Lighting & Energy Solutions Inc. specializes in energy-efficient lighting design that reduces energy consumption up to 60% by retrofitting existing industrial and commercial lighting. In two-and-a-half years, the company has helped its customers save 13,424,640 kilowatt-hours and 3.2 megawatts of demand. Those results have prevented 29,534,207 pounds of carbon dioxide; 214,794 pounds of sulfur dioxide; and 926,300 pounds of nitrogen oxide from being emitted into California’s ecosystem.

At one site, the San Francisco landmark known as the Cow Palace, the retrofitting should produce an annual savings of 1,508,523 kilowatt-hours. “We installed new lighting at the Cow Palace that employs the latest advances in lighting technology,” notes Randy Parole, president of Progressive Lighting & Energy Solutions. “Incandescent lights in the arena were retrofitted to Energy Star Compact Fluorescent Lamps [CFLs]. This improves the color of the lighting and reduces the electrical load by 60%. Apart from saving money and reducing pollution, the new energy-efficient lighting also provides better illumination and reduces both heat and maintenance.” The Westwood Medical Plaza, owned by The Muller Company, witnessed the replacement of more than 1,200 lights, and can anticipate an annual saving in energy costs of more than $26,500.

Who Benefits? One Group is “We, the People”
Penn State University could see the benefits of an energy-efficient lighting retrofit. The university was talking about 15 buildings, 14,000 electronic ballasts, and 27,000 energy-efficient lamps. Atlantic Energy Concepts points out that the key to the implementation and success of the program was a Guaranteed Energy Savings Program (GESP), an energy-saving performance contract modeled on Pennsylvania’s Act 57. That process allows state entities to enter into an agreement with an energy service company to provide energy-efficient upgrades to the University’s facilities. The project is structured so that the upgrades will generate enough savings in utility and operational costs to pay for the upgrades in a 10-year period. Anticipated savings at Penn State from lighting upgrades are $125,000 per year.

In a similar program, with taxpayer money saved, six state colleges in Eastern Tennessee changed 57,263 ballasts on their lighting (most of them from T12 to ULTim8 from Universal Lighting Technologies) to accommodate more than four million square feet of classrooms. The anticipated energy saving is about $1 million annually. “With the new ballasts, the students and staff get a lot more than just energy savings,” notes David Wilson, director of facilities at Pellissippi State Technical Community College in Knoxville, where almost 7,000 fixtures were retrofitted. “With the ULTim8 ballasts, they now have improved light quality, enjoy more consistent light levels and, last but not least, have reduced maintenance costs.”

We have seen schools achieve good results, and let’s remember that most are publicly owned. Savings for them is savings for us. Perhaps we should ask how our own local school districts are responding to the energy-efficient lighting programs. Some of the people with whom we talk about lighting efficiency say they do not see how lighting can deserve so much attention and have a strong negative impact on the environment. Most of those same people admit they flick on a light when they go into a room, even when there is no need for artificial lighting, as if lights were not a practical aspect but “just part of the décor.” “Lights hang or stand in rooms,” says one neighbor. “They look funny or useless if they’re not switched on.” What does it take to change the thinking of a nation? Higher prices are not always the solution, it seems, because so many people today feel they can afford high prices for their conveniences. As our population ages, however, it seems we become more paradoxically aware of the tomorrow we may not see, more concerned about the condition in which we leave our land for tomorrow’s residents (who, today, are very small or simply twinkles in various eyes).

Change, But Not Just for the Sake of Change
Changing lifestyles affect the importance and cost of electric energy use. At an industry roundtable, Brad Oberg, executive director of IBACOS (Integrated Building and Construction Solutions), a company that researches the basic science of home performance and best construction practices, comments about lighting: “The building industry, using incremental advances and cooperative efforts, is moving toward a home that will achieve 70% energy savings by 2020. This will come about due to advancements in insulation, windows, gap closure, HVAC efficiency, and an assortment of components changes. With those changes, and using currently available lighting technologies, in 2020, lighting will be the largest consumer of electricity in the home, moving from today’s 7% to a whopping 45%.”

One of the most experienced and knowledgeable persons in the lighting industry with whom I spoke was Jeff Dross, senior product manager at Kichler Lighting, based in Ohio, with more than 30 years’ experience. “You need help in selecting your lighting,” says Dross. “Lighting fixtures, for example, have been treated by many owners as appliances. If they don’t fail, they have not been replaced. Today, fixtures are made better. Electronic ballasts are so much better. The average person today—and even people in our industry—cannot tell the difference between the light quality of new fluorescent lights and the traditional incandescent types.” Dross also points out that the costs of energy have been rising dramatically (even if inflation has remained low for some 15 years), and our power-moving infrastructure is old, deteriorating, and in need of replacement. New power-producing plants seem unlikely to come on-line any time soon. The American population has been shifting to areas that were previously only sparsely populated, places like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and the Carolinas. While all this is happening, American consumers keep on adding equipment to their personal environment; equipment that demands energy. Companies like Kichler Lighting have been doing research and development to give consumers what they want in a community-conscious, nation-conscious manner. They are part of what can only be described as the help that is already on its way.

How does that energy-guzzling consumer feel about the energy situation as it relates to buildings? A recent survey noted that 18% are willing to pay for “environmentally friendly” buildings (commercial and residential); 14% are not concerned by the problem; 35% are concerned, but not willing to pay for its solution; and 33% are concerned, but do not want the added expense as an increased burden at the time of construction.

More Than the Style of Lamp is Involved
The change from incandescent to fluorescent—and soon to LED—is important, and a huge factor in anticipated savings of energy. It’s not just the lamps themselves. Experts tell us that the placement of fixtures should be considered carefully. Having accepted that lighting is a practical part of our buildings and environment, not simply a look-nice feature, we should place lighting where it will be useful. That, surely, will reduce waste at once. At the same time, consider the lighting controls, because they can contribute to your savings. Years ago, we used to leave our fluorescent lights on, even when they were not needed, because it would take too long to turn them on again. Today’s lights are much better. With good controls (based on motion, sound, or both) the lights can be turned on for instant brightness when they are needed, and they go off when not needed. The difference is that today we have the lights that can do what we’ve always wanted. One comment by Dross at Kichler Lighting struck me as most important: “The lumen efficacy of incandescent, fluorescent, and electric discharge lamps has flattened. The lumen efficacy of LED is doing nothing but moving up.”

Another experienced and knowledgeable person in this arena of lighting controls is Allan Samuels, executive vice president of Clive Samuels & Associates, consulting engineers who are a division of Emerson Climate Solutions. “The components of the lighting control system are important,” he advises. “That includes the lamps, luminair, ballasts, and controls. The biggest improvement we have seen has been in the ballast. It used to be mechanical and is now electronic. It’s more efficient today, more stable, and obviously quieter. You won’t hear yesterday’s hum from today’s ballasts. Rapid starting is in development, too, and the perfection of that technique will make a big difference.” Samuels said that LED lighting systems would be the best yet. They are infinitely controllable and you can turn them on and off a million times without any problems.

LEDs also like cold temperatures, so there are numerous applications for their practical use, such as in storage rooms and freezer sections. “In regions where cold weather has been known to affect the performance of lighting (in Alaska, for example), LEDs will prove their superiority,” adds Samuels. At the moment, LED lighting is expensive and it seems that manufacturers and their dealers will have to learn what has already been learned with compact fluorescent lamps: use will expand exponentially when they are affordable. “We should look at the life cycle cost of lighting,” advises Samuels. “The initial cost of yesterday’s lights seemed small, but the energy and maintenance costs soon altered that situation. With the new lighting systems offered today, even if the initial cost is a higher, the lifetime costs will be considerably lower.” An example of that concept was at a parking garage. One of the greatest costs, before the owners updated the lighting, was the labor involved in the maintenance of burned-out incandescent lamps—hundreds of them. In that case, the savings in labor alone have proved dramatic.

LED Could Be QED
LEDs have been called the future of lighting. They can emit any color, they are durable, and they have a long life span (as much as 50,000 hours, say some manufacturers). They consume less energy than incandescent and fluorescent lights. According to the US Department of Energy (DOE), 22% of the energy used is spent for lighting. The DOE hopes to reduce the electricity used for lighting by 50%, by converting to LED-based light sources. The government estimate is that general adoption of LED lighting could save $115 billion in energy costs in the next few years, and we should remind ourselves that such savings are for us, the users, not for a government department. While LEDs are much more expensive than traditional lamps at the moment, we are encouraged to think of these light sources as investments, rather than quick-fix solutions to lighting needs or energy efficiency. Those involved in the design and manufacture of LEDs believe their performance will improve quickly and their prices will decrease rapidly. Cree is one manufacturer. Its XLamp LED’s performance has increased more than 100% in the past 18 months. The technology, then, is improving much more quickly than anybody expected. Cree is unusual in that it makes nothing but LEDs, but you probably won’t see its brand name in the market. It provides its lamps for indoor lighting fixture companies like LLF and outdoor lighting experts like Ruud Lighting.

LEDs have been used in cell phones, as indicator lights, as well as streetlights, traffic lights, parking garages, flashlights, and other applications. Early in 2007, the warm-white LED was announced, and that has led to more interest from residential customers. One consumer product available (from LLF) is the LR6 down light, which lasts 50,000 hours. You can dim it and it screws into a traditional light socket. It uses 85% less energy than an incandescent and less than half of the energy used by a compact fluorescent. Phillips Solid State Lighting Solutions has more than 15,000 installations worldwide. The LAX Gateway at Los Angeles International Airport replaced metal halide with an LED system, anticipating 75% less energy consumption. Boathouse Row in Philadelphia will save about $57,000 after replacing incandescents with an LED system. Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas replaced metal halide with an LED system and the annual energy cost was cut from $18,000 to $1,900.

Controlling the Controls
Much talk about the right way to use lighting, so that we derive the greatest benefit from the lighting itself and the wisest savings from energy efficiency, concerns the control of the lighting in a building (and outside it, if that is pertinent).

Up until now, sound or movement has activated most controls, like those lights you can have outside your house to deter burglars. Infrared technology has given us some good security and that genre of lighting does save energy. “The limitations of infrared occupancy sensors include the fact that they can’t tell if you are in the space,” notes Bruce Thompson, vice president of corporate development at ObjectVideo. “It’s possible that if you sit still the lights will go off. To avoid this, timers were built into the sensors.”

ObjectVideo’s history has been replete with security-related situations. The company has provided protection for many government sites. Now, it is investigating the uses of its technologies for purposes such as building control, business intelligence, and customer service (such as analyzing where customers went in a store).

ObjectVideo’s equipment is not sold directly to the user; it is part of equipment supplied by other manufacturers and system designers. It is a vision-based sensor, not a camera, and it surveys space to generate data.

Most office space is said to be unoccupied 50% of the time, but still given lighting. Think of warehouses and parts departments in factories. The research and development of ObjectVideo has led the company to technologies that can be most useful in those conditions. In your warehouse, for example, you need to know when an aisle is empty or when a forklift is approaching and requires light. In offices, you may have lighting in spots and corners that are never used, where the light is simply another expense. What could you do about that situation, for the entire office building perhaps?

“We can set a defined area in a space,” explains Thompson. “We can, for example, define the office and not include the hallway, so that a person walking past your door is not presumed to be somebody in the office. We can define zones in a space, areas of an office, and we can tell when somebody leaves a space. One sensor can cover 1,000 square feet and then divide that area into zones. We can count the number of people in a space. How many people are in the room? How many have left?”

Don’t feel guilty if your lighting arrangements seem obsolete or developed for Noah in his ark. The ability to do many of the tasks that are rapidly becoming standard is new; it’s the result of scientific research. Like all new technologies, it will take time to reach everybody.

“LEDs will be available from sources like Home Depot and Lowe’s in only five years,” comments Cree LED lighting expert, John Edmond. “Its use for commercial lighting has already taken off, so now the industry will focus on residential applications. We’ll be seeing more and more home LED fixtures come to market in the upcoming months. The LR6 (from LLF) is currently available for purchase and other LED lighting options are arriving, especially as the price point goes down and they will be able to compete with the prices of compact fluorescents and incandescents. For the best energy-efficient option that is dimmable and does not contain environmentally harmful substances, LEDs are the light source of choice.”

Further Applications
To emphasize what was mentioned earlier, that benefits are for the public as much as for individual users, Cree announced in October 2007, that the city of Ann Arbor, MI, plans to become the first US city to convert 100% of its downtown streetlights to LED technology. (Raleigh, NC, and Toronto, ON, have similar programs already.) Ann Arbor anticipates a 3.8-year payback on its initial investment. The LED lights will burn typically five times longer than the bulbs they replace, and require less than half the energy. Each new fixture draws 56 watts and is projected to last 10 years, replacing fixtures with bulbs that use more than 120 watts and last only two years. This full implementation of LEDs is projected to halve the city’s public lighting energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2,425 tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s equivalent to taking 400 cars off the road for a year.

Leading manufacturers of lighting products (like Osram Sylvania, General Electric, and Phillips), power companies (like Duke Energy, PG&E, and Georgia Power), and retailers (like Office Depot, which completed one of the largest energy efficiency lighting retrofits ever by retrofitting the company’s North American retail store chain—almost 1,200 units—with T5 energy-efficient lights) have added enthusiastic encouragement to the North American public in the efforts to save energy on lighting. Of the many inspirational awakenings to the energy situation of our continent, this seems to have been the most widely supported and the most widely accepted. We should also acknowledge the Energy Star programs again; in this case, for the Change a Light, Change the World campaign, sponsored by the EPA and the DOE. But this is not a government issue; it’s a people issue.

People are talking about the challenges. “I’m a layman on the issue, not a scientist,” notes Martin Walls, communications manager at the Syracuse Center of Excellence. “We do, however, talk about this issue at work. The current concern here (excuse the pun) is that the most popular energy-saving bulbs on the market—the compact fluorescent—is not a good solution, as the bulbs contain mercury and pose an ecological hazard that can’t be said to offset their energy savings. The real breakthrough will come when the compact household LED light is made affordable. They are ecologically safe and much, much more energy efficient.” Walls added that the best form of lighting at home or work is sunlight. “At our recent conference, one scientist held up his light meter. He said the light being produced by incandescents guzzling energy in the large conference room could have been achieved by a handful of skylights with the sunlight streaming in. Too few buildings pay any attention to windows as lights, a huge waste of the sun’s energy, not to mention the fossil fuels it takes to keep incandescent bulbs working on a sunny day!”

Paul Hull writes on construction topics.

DE - March/April 2008