Illumination & Lighting - Dan Fulmer- BOMA Jacksonville

We've all heard how much money and energy we're going to save by completing that lighting retrofit that we've been putting off. How can we be sure that we'll see the actual savings? Is it just a myth lighting companies use to sell their products and services or are the savings really there and when can I expect to see a return on my investment?

It all comes down to simple math and GE has provided us all with the tool to calculate the savings ourselves and see when we can expect to fully recoup the cost of the retrofit.

Follow this link to GE's Simple Energy Estimator

A few bits of information you need to collect before you begin:

* total amount of fixtures you plan to retrofit
* the average number of hours the fixture will be turned on per year
* your cost per kilowatt hour rate
* watts per fixture in current system
* watts per fixture in proposed system
* the cost to upgrade each fixture.

Let's say you want to retrofit your three story building, removing the old T12 technology and installing new T8 fixtures. You have 400 total fixtures that are on 14 hours a day, 5 days a week, a total of 3640 hours a year. On average your electric cost is $.12 per Kwh. Your current T12 fixture is using 134 system watts and the proposed T8 fixture will use 75 system watts.
You know this because your lighting expert put it all on a spreadsheet for you along with the cost per fixture of $54.00. Now plug the numbers into the Simple Energy

Estimator to see your savings and your estimated ROI.

I hope this helps you understand the true energy savings you can expect from a lighting retrofit. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Jennifer Morgan