Warehouse with Old Lighting

BEFORE

Warehouse with New Energy Efficient Lighting

AFTER

Energy Efficient Commercial Lighting

Help the Environment—Help Your Bottom Line


The benefits of energy efficient commercial lighting include:

  • Decreased energy bills
  • Increased worker productivity
  • Reduction in heat loads
  • Reduction in glare and eye strain
  • Reduction in yearly maintenance
  • Increased lumens
  • Reduction in lamp disposal costs
  • Maintain luminosity longer
  • More natural lighting
  • Federal, State, and/or Local Incentives


Lighting accounts for more than 40% of electricity usage in offices, stores and commercial buildings in the United States. A 100,000 sq ft commercial warehouse operating 24 hours per day with 300 to 400 fixtures can easily spend greater than $100,000 per year on lighting bills.

With the increased efficiencies in lighting products, it makes sound economic sense to include a lighting retrofit at your existing facility this year, and to include energy efficient lighting in all new building projects.

Return on Investments can range from 1 to 4 years. You can use your yearly savings to pay for the lighting project investment, as well as benefit from EPAct 2005 tax deductions. It's not necessary to keep throwing more money at your utility.

Warehouse Case Study

Financial Impact

# Fixtures Replaced 256
Annual Hours/Fixture 4290
Existing Annual kWh 351,475
kWh Saved 193,505
Yearly Maintenance Savings $19,043.58
New Fixture Price Total $30,589.00
Annual Operating Cost Existing $38,398.82
Annual Operating Cost New $15,546.53

The 100,000 sq ft manufacturing plant operates 12 hours/day.
The lighting retrofit qualified them for the $.60/sq ft EPAct 2005 tax deduction, in addition to state and local utility incentives.*

If this company had chosen to do nothing, they would have lost $95,218 dollars over 5 years. Over 20 years, well within the expected life of the fixture, this company would have lost $380,872 based upon today's energy prices.

Return on Investment was less than 2 years.


Environmental Impact

It is an established fact that lighting causes pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity. In this case study, the kWh savings per year were able to offset some of this pollution by the following amounts:

  • 290,257 pounds of Carbon Dioxide
  • 483,762 grams of Sulfur Dioxide
  • 1,122,327 grams of Nitrogen Oxides


According to the USEPA, this has the effect of:

  • Planting 36 acres of trees
  • Removing 27 cars from the road each year
  • Saving 17,591 gallons of gasoline each year


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   *Federal, State and Utility incentives for lighting in your area can be found at the DSIRE website.