So here’s what is happening in the market place. The vendors are all on a major campaign with end users (primarily industrial concerns) to practically give these T5 & T8 systems away since they know that it won’t be long until the LED lighting solution dominates the market… and the rebates for these fluorescent lighting systems are still available, making it all that much more attractive to the end user.
Although the pricing for the LED solutions will consistently drop as the technology improves and the options increase, there is presently no way to compete with a fluorescent lighting solution on strictly a cost comparison for a turnkey installation, especially when you factor in the incentives provided for the fluorescent solutions that are not available for the LED solutions. It is like the utility companies, through their retro-active energy initiative programs, are steering their customers to invest in old technology simply because their incentives are based on this old technology and they are not prepared for the technologies that are available today.
When an industrial facility decides to invest in a new lighting system for their manufacturing areas they are investing in a system that will more than likely serve these areas for the next twenty years. So with that in mind it is imperative that these facilities thoroughly investigate all of their options and to look beyond the simple cost of installation and the calculated ROI. Although these fluorescent lighting solutions are ridiculously cheap they come with lots of issues and constraints that you don’t get with a LED solution. The utility companies need to recognize this now and adjust their programs accordingly so that they are not steering their customers in the wrong direction!
STOP THE PRESS!! While this blog has been developing so has the groundswell of support for our energy efficient, scalable and modular data center designs AND our LED lighting solutions! Significant breakthroughs with a couple major utility companies have provided encouraging signs that these utility companies just might be ‘getting it’.
The utility company we have been working with in Massachusetts has recently provided our customer with a substantial incentive for the merits of their data center design. Although this approval process took about nine months to materialize I have to say that I am optimistic about future opportunities to provide utility company incentives to our clients who are willing to invest in highly efficient data center designs. As a matter of fact I really have to give credit to the account rep from this utility company. I was pretty relentless throughout this nine month period while we waited for the utility company to go from one engineering study to the next, and I am sure he dreaded every email or phone call from me. However, to his credit, shortly after the incentives were awarded he sent me a totally unsolicited email that was somewhat apologetic for the lengthy and frustrating process we had to go through to obtain this incentive, but now that we have been through the process he expressed confidence in the fact that future opportunities should be realized in a much more timely and less painful process. Then he went on to thank me for hounding him all this time, and if it wasn’t for me hounding him relentlessly he might not have stuck with it. How about that?
It gets better…
Back to the LED lighting retrofit for the interior terminal spaces at the airport – I was contacted by the utility company account rep for the airport one day and he informed me that in an effort to move forward with this project they would be willing to hire an engineering firm to do an independent review of the LED fixture we were proposing – at their expense! Providing we could get them all the information they needed and the fixture passed the criteria required they would agree to provide incentives to the airport and finance this project out of energy savings. They were painfully aware of the fact that this was a great project that simply wouldn’t happen if we had to rely on the DLC for approval.
We were able to provide them with all the test results they needed and although it seemed to take forever, we finally received approval for proceed with the project with the blessings and financial incentives from the utility company. BINGO! Now we will have the first major interior LED retrofit project within this utility company’s area and it should be another poster child project for everyone involved.
It’s not over yet! This same airport has vast quantities of 400 watt metal halide street lights on multiple metered accounts. It just so happens that the same LED fixture manufacturer whose fixtures we are using in the terminal makes a 66 watt LED unit that blows the doors off the 400 watt metal halide unit for energy savings as well as performance. The airport approached us about looking into the prospects of retrofitting these street lights so we made our pitch to the utility company and it only took them a couple weeks to approve the first phase of this project, which is about 30% of the overall project.
Again, this utility company will be providing a substantial financial incentive to the airport and then financing the project out of energy savings with a projected ROI of approximately four years.
I don’t know if these utility companies have been following this blog or not, but it sure as hell seems like they have been. The positive changes that have taken place just in the last couple months are incredible to say the least, and it now gives me hope that these utility companies are finally realizing that the opportunities they so dearly need for their energy initiative programs are with emerging technologies and NOT the old technologies. Now it feels like the incredible amount of effort and energy we invested while trying to get these utilities to come around has all been worth it.
