Power company sponsered lighting upgrade

RJT · Aug 31, 2016

Just had a sales / energy audit call from Duke Power (my power company). They will pay 80% of cost to upgrade my florescent lighting to energy efficient (retrofit magnetic ballast to digital and put reflector kits in). They calculate payback in 8 months (savings on energy bills). I talked to a few people who have done it, and they did it because their lighting needed upgrading anyway, not to save money on the electric bill. They came in and counted light fixtures , did the calculation, seems like it would be a good investment. Anyone here done it and saved on their monthly bill?

JLarsson · Aug 31, 2016

What's in it for the power company?

capital7 · Aug 31, 2016

JLarsson said:
What's in it for the power company?

Depending on the area, it may end up being cheaper for them if they are having issues with supplying power, or they might have something set up with light bulb manufacturers.(If the power company is supplying the bulbs and fixtures)

amdinc · Aug 31, 2016

In Pennsylania the power company has been picking the pockets of the customers to pay for this giveback. I'm not sure if this is a federal govt. program but I have been paying a surcharge so they could pay me back a little to put up new lights.
The estimates I had were way out of line with the savings they said I would get.
The cost per lumen was about equal to the lighting I had except that I would be paying a little less but with a sizeable reduction in actual light output. I have metal halide lighting now.

John

RJT · Aug 31, 2016

Power company can sell power to new customers as they come on the grid and avoid costly new power plant.

deljr15 · Aug 31, 2016

I dont know the details of it but I believe there was a federal stimulus package for that. We did the same thing in our old plant in Minnesota

That one was updated because it needed it not because of power savings. If im not mistaken the lights are negligible next to the welders/cncs

Mud · Aug 31, 2016

PPL upgraded me at no cost through a 3rd party. Retrofitted all my double 8" fixtures to single T8s with added reflectors. I can't say I saved anything on the monthly bill because my usage varies a lot, but it's a lot brighter than with the 30+ year old lights. In a 3000 ft storage building they installed T8s to replace a bunch of old 300W incandescents for about $300, wow it's like daylight in there now.
I was told it was because of a tarriff of some sort the power company had to pay the gov't, it was an incentive on their part to reduce the power consumption per capita or some such. I didn't care that I didn't really get a clear explanation, I got the free lights that I believe I'd be paying for somehow even if I didn't take them.

Tonytn36 · Aug 31, 2016

We did something like that 3 years ago. (almost 700,000 sq ft of manufacturing space). The actual ROI was either 6 or 7 months, can't remember exactly. The bonus was the lighting installed was actually better than what we took out. All of the office spaces / outside lighting got upgraded to LED last year for another savings.
If you are a 1000 sq ft shop, probably not much help, but if you have quite a bit of space, it's a good investment.

motion guru · Aug 31, 2016

We also did this several years ago with 20,000 square feet of coverage and motion sensors in each light so that they go out after 10 minutes of no activity below the light. Our ROI was less than a year and we have enjoyed energy savings each year since. Like others, we figure it is at least twice as much light hitting the work areas.

Ohio Mike · Aug 31, 2016

Its a Win-Win. You get to buy better lighting (like LED) to replace your old junk and it only cost you 20%. So more light and you spend less money a month doing it. These are a mix of federal and state energy programs depending on where you are.

ManualEd · Aug 31, 2016

JLarsson said:
What's in it for the power company?

Instead of selling the power to you for $.08/KwH at the industrial rate, they take all the power that the upgrade saves, and sell it to residential at $.12/KwH.

Depends on the usage in the area/peak times and whatnot, but that's the gist of it.

Toolbert · Aug 31, 2016

We're a tenant of an 18,000 warehouse. Six years ago the landlord did a utility-sponsored upgrade that replaced the sparsely-placed halides with T8's with twice as many 6-bulb T8's, and motion sensors on each fixture. The bill stayed the same, but we enjoy much better lighting. The lights blinking on and off at random drove us nuts, so our area has since been reconfigured with hardwired switches. It's disorienting to be doing a high-concentration machine task and have the light change.

paul39 · Sep 1, 2016

JLarsson said:
What's in it for the power company?

The Gummint is holding their ass to the fire to become more efficient. This is also why one could recently buy 60 watt equivalent LEDs for less than a dollar.

Paul

paul39 · Sep 1, 2016

RJT said:
Just had a sales / energy audit call from Duke Power (my power company). They will pay 80% of cost to upgrade my florescent lighting to energy efficient (retrofit magnetic ballast to digital and put reflector kits in). They calculate payback in 8 months (savings on energy bills). I talked to a few people who have done it, and they did it because their lighting needed upgrading anyway, not to save money on the electric bill. They came in and counted light fixtures , did the calculation, seems like it would be a good investment. Anyone here done it and saved on their monthly bill?

They came to our church with the same or similar offer. I was suspicious, as I am when any big business offers a good deal. I counted all our lights and found that we could not buy the ballasts and lamps for what they offered, let alone labor. It has been some years and we have not had to replace any ballasts and only a few 40 watt tubes.

Many years ago we started replacing incandescent lamps with CFLs when a CFL cost $13 each. Even at that it was cost effective without figuring labor. We were dragging a 50 foot A frame ladder into the church and replacing 60 watt lamps two - three times a year. When we went to CFLs we replaced all of them once every three years. As I was, and still am, the now 76 year old fool that climbs the ladder, I am grateful.

We now have 2 - 300 LEDs, Some CFLs, and long florescent lamps in the church, social hall and office. The only incandescents are in the refrigerator and microwave.

It saves a pile of money.

Paul

RJT · Sep 14, 2016

I was at a welding shop yesterday who had the power company switch most of his florescent to the more energy efficient bulbs and the new bulbs (after 30 days) were noticeably yellow compared to the few old florescent that he still had. If he hadn't had the two next to each other it may not have been so noticeable, but it was really apparent that there was a big difference. Has anyone else seen this?

Hardened · Sep 14, 2016

RJT that's a matter of the chosen spectrum of light tube. Someone went "warm white" instead of "soft white" or more preferably, "daylight". It's all in the tube.

The Dude · Sep 14, 2016

Do it, this is a very common practice around the country. Bottom line is it keeps them from having to build more power plants so there is an incentive. Done correctly, your monthly bill and maintenance (time & materials for lamps and ballasts) will go down and productivity will go up (people can see better making it feel better, less chance of mistakes and safer).

Wouldn't hurt to do some due diligence (i.e. verify what they are installing is what you really need) but it's very unlikely this will end up worse for you.

The Dude

Scruffy887 · Sep 15, 2016

I did this and everything looked good when they finished. A bit over a year later the ballasts started failing one by one. Sorry, warranty is only one year. Over the next 2 years we replaced every one of them. A total PITA. My electrician looked at the first ballast and said that series was obsolete/discontinued. Guess they bought them at a good price.
Ask to see the new stuff and get an independent opinion about the quality of what they are putting in. Remember that the contractor who does the work does so to make a profit. Buying the cheapest fixture that meets the spec puts more $ in his pocket.

RJT · Oct 4, 2016

I called my electrician to get his opinion (quote was from Duke power subcontractor that I was unfamiliar with). He said he could do it (didn't realize he was also a Duke power authorized subcontractor). He was very surprised that the quote I had was to retrofit T12 with T8 lighting. He recommends going to LED. Not sure what the price difference is yet, but sounds like I should definitely look at it. He says I wont realize much savings in power unless I go LED and that in a few years i would probably upgrade again if I didn't do it now. Wondering why the first contractor wouldn't suggest LED? BTW 5 year guarantee on new ballast.

The Dude · Oct 4, 2016

RJT said:
I called my electrician to get his opinion (quote was from Duke power subcontractor that I was unfamiliar with). He said he could do it (didn't realize he was also a Duke power authorized subcontractor). He was very surprised that the quote I had was to retrofit T12 with T8 lighting. He recommends going to LED. Not sure what the price difference is yet, but sounds like I should definitely look at it. He says I wont realize much savings in power unless I go LED and that in a few years i would probably upgrade again if I didn't do it now. Wondering why the first contractor wouldn't suggest LED? BTW 5 year guarantee on new ballast.

When I was doing some energy efficiency work a few years ago they were saying that T8's in LED form weren't "ready for prime time" but I think that's changed a bit. Like anything, it takes a while for change to work it's way through the system and, while their are good intentions, about the last groups to formally make the change will be the incentive oriented groups (likely in part due to the fact that there's upstream money interests). I would call someone at Duke (they should have some internal lighting experts) and get their explanation. You are wisely doing your due diligence but, unfortunately, it doesn't always lead to a bigger pot of gold. Hopefully you'll get some good answers and, if you don't mind, at least I'm curious as to the outcome.

The Dude

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