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MAY 2015
Business
Energy
GENERATION | EFFICIENCY | TECHNOLOGY
The Energy
Efficiency
Issue
• Big Box Stores,
Big Efficiencies
• A Time for
Tankless
• Is Hydrogen
Our Future?
• Dark Skies
LIGHTING
SUPPLEMENT
INSIDE
Caltrans
Special Supplement
The LED
Lighting Revolution
FINANCING AND LOWERED
ENERGY USE CONSIDERED
BY ED RITCHIE
T
he LED lighting revolution isn’t snowballing
anymore. At this point, it’s more appropriate to say it’s become a full-fledged avalanche. Yet still, many businesses are unsure
if they’re ready for the new technology, or
more appropriately, is the new technology
ready for them? Let’s answer that question by taking a look at
some of the key decision factors, and some impressive solutions from top manufacturers.
To guide us through the big issues that should be con26 SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT www.BusinessEnergy.net
sidered before making the move to LED lighting, we talked
with Kyle Hemmi, senior energy engineer, at CLEAResult, an
Austin, TX-based company that designs, markets, and implements energy programs for utilities and businesses.
Hemmi notes that LED technology has evolved rapidly
since its debut on the market. “Years ago when LEDs were just
starting to find their way onto the commercial market, it was a
challenge,” he says. “The Energy Star program was just getting
started, and there weren’t a lot of standards and qualified product listings to control the quality and compare technologies.
Bay Bridge LED lighting
And, obviously, the prices were exorbitant. Now I would argue
that we’re at a turning point in the evolution and maturation of
the LED market. Though there are still challenges, like the complexity of LEDs, they are different animals. It’s taken a while for
the supply chain and people involved to get up to speed and get
the message out to make contractors, end users, customers, and
consumers aware and comfortable with the technology.”
The need to get the installation industry comfortable with
the technology motivated Intermatic Inc., Spring Grove, IL, to
develop a comprehensive new testing approach to help inform
electrical contractors of the performance of its lighting control
portfolio when LED lighting is used.
According to Liz Jacobs, vice president of marketing
for Intermatic, contractors often see controls on the market
labeled “LED Compatible,” “Listed for LED,” or “Meets LED
standards,” but those terms do not describe the actual performance of the controls over the lifetime of the LED lighting.
Eric Eronen, a product marketing manager at Intermatic,
notes that the confusion is understandable. “Logically, say I’m
substituting a 100-watt bulb with a 15-watt bulb, and common
sense says that you could put maybe ten times as many bulbs
on the same circuit, and the wattage is correct,” he says. “But
all of these lamps may have an inrush current that can affect
the control. Over time, it can cause pitting on the contacts and
cause switch failures.”
Contractors shouldn’t underestimate the severity of the
damage, adds Jimmy Adjunta, product marketing manager at
Intermatic. “You can have an inrush current that is fifty times
the actual draw, and that can put the contractor in a little bit
of a crunch, because they may have been contracted to replace
and update systems,” says Adjunta. “But they don’t look at the
specs for the controls. So a contractor will put in LEDs, and
when the switch fails, they think it’s a bad switch. But they end
up replacing it with the same product, and six months down
the road it needs to be replaced again. They assume the switch
manufacturer is making something faulty, but the problem
could be avoided if they have the knowledge of the proper
control specifications for those loads.”
The situations addressed by Intermatic are often found in
interior building lighting, but more specialized systems have
had an easier time making the transition. Says Hemmi, “With
applications, such as refrigeration units in frozen food cases,
they were earlier adopters, and beyond the energy savings,
there are significant benefits in terms of decreased spoilage and
improved appearance of the product. From a supermarket’s
perspective, the entire package offers compelling benefits.”
One of the most compelling may be the fast return on
investment (ROI). For example, Stater Bros., a southern
California supermarket chain, recently finished a retrofit of
the frozen-food cases in nearly all of its 166 stores. The switch
from 60-W fluorescent lights to GE’s 17-WImmersion RV40
LED system translates to total annual energy and maintenance
savings of approximately $570,000. According to Scott Limbacher, vice president, Construction/Maintenance at Stater
Bros., the chain has received positive feedback from customers,
and store managers reported that the new lighting really makes
their products pop. Moreover, LED lighting generates less heat,
which translates to fewer compressor cycles in the food cases
for additional indirect energy savings.
Those are significant savings, but, of course, most businesses don’t have refrigerator cases, so how about an example
for lighting in restaurants and retail? Let’s look at a product
from, Cree, in Durham, NC. Recently, the LED lighting manufacturer announced an “Industry Breakthrough Replacement for Halogen MR16 Lamps,” the MR16 Series TrueWhite
LED Lamps. This bulb delivers the soft, diffused light of a
Business Energy May 2015 27
Special Supplement
Midwest areas aggressively move money
to LED incentives. And the Department
of Energy’s lighting program has helped
in getting the message out there.” Then,
too, many government agencies are taking advantage of LED benefits.
The California Department of
Transportation (Caltrans) recently completed its LED lighting overhaul of the
East Span of the San Francisco–Oakland
Bay Bridge. After three years of testing and designing custom fixtures, the
bridge has an energy-efficient lighting
solution deploying
51,500 high -performance LEDs, lighting
the entire East Span at
an estimated energy
savings of 50% and
lifetime of 15 years.
That’s more than
seven times longer
than the previous
lighting technology.
High unit counts
such as the bridge’s
are beneficial. “Let’s
say a furniture store
has 1,500, 120-watt
incandescent or halogen light fixtures,”
says Hemmi. “That’s
a lot of wattage, and
if you dim those by
30%, you get a lot of
savings. But if you
replace all of those
with a 20-watt LED,
now all the sudden
you’re controlling one fifth of the
overall load.”
The retail marketplace is benefiting
greatly, according to John Koster, product manager, indoor LED fixtures, GE,
Cleveland, OH. “They have the highest
concentration of accent lighting of all
the vertical market segments,” he says.
GE recently introduced its Lumination TS Series LED Accent Lights, a new
line of track lighting products for retail
and hospitality usage. “We designed the
TS series with the retail market in mind,
and the line ranges anywhere from 11 to
20 watts,” says Koster. When you’re talking about comparing these to traditional
halogen lamps, you’re talking about saving up to 85% on energy. Also, retailers
28 SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT www.BusinessEnergy.net
have found it to be a good opportunity
to reduce the number of lamps in the
store. So, they’re maximizing their
energy savings even more and reducing
their acquisition costs. It’s due primarily
to our multiple lumen options. In some
cases, a 19.5-watt 1700 lm version of the
TS series can replace two or three halogen floodlights, or an MR 16.”
Another benefit is less heat, which
provides incremental energy savings
on the HVAC system that doesn’t have
to work as hard to cool a building.
Aikilu
traditional 50-W halogen MR16 lamp
and is designed for global compatibility
with virtually all existing sockets. The
suggested retail price is $25, and with
efficiency usage up to 83% less energy,
it can deliver a rapid payback of less
than one year. LED lamps are dimmable and available in 15-degree spot,
25-degree flood, and 40-degree wide
flood beam angles in a 1.97-inch ANSIcompliant form factor, allowing them
to easily fit into existing tracks for a
one-for-one replacement.
Hubbell Lighting, in Greenville, SC,
recently launched its Lighting Upgrade
Program for the Hospitality Industry.
The program allows hotels to project
energy savings through retrofits, and
then validates those estimates with
sample products in a 90-day trial that
can cut hospitality electricity costs by
60%, translating to a 5.58% increase in
profitability. After the trial period, customers can decide to keep the products
or return them for a full refund.
Hubbell’s “createchange program”
includes a comprehensive evaluation
of hospitality lighting solutions for
lobbies, conference rooms, meeting
rooms, common areas, building exteriors, landscapes, signage, parking lots,
and garages. Customers can also take
advantage of the CashFlow Positive
program, which structures financing
to ensure that energy cost savings are
greater than monthly financing costs.
So hotels experience an immediate
positive cash flow.
Does your location have high
ceilings, such as an auditorium? If so,
there’s equally good news. Hubbell
recently announced that their Prescolite high output LED downlight is now
offered in lumen packages ranging up
to more than 16,500 lumens. That’s a
lot of lighting power for school auditoriums, concert halls, theaters, and
churches, with high ceilings from 20 to
60 feet. The MegaLum accepts wireless
dimming directly to its driver, making
it simple to control.
In many progressive states, it’s
likely that such large facilities can benefit from government incentives, says
Hemmi. “We’ve seen the utilities in more
mature markets such as California, the
Northwest and Northeast, and certain
Additional savings in maintenance are
possible, because traditional halogen
bulbs are typically rated for about 3,000
hours, compared to the TS series rating
of 50,000 hours.
The TS line features GE’s Visual
Comfort Lens, to give the look of traditional halogen lamps. “Many LED products on the market have individual LED
pixels or dots on their face, but ours are
further recessed in the fixture and the
traditional looking lens greatly reduces
glare and gives a look that customers are
familiar with,” says Koster. “And, from
a design standpoint, we optimized the
LED selection in the fixture. For flood
lighting applications, we select LEDs
that optimize the efficiency and lumens
per watt. But for spotlighting applications, we selected different LEDs that
deliver a high-beam intensity for higher
footcandles from a long distance. These
are designed for easy installation into
existing track systems, and there are a
variety of track adapter options to work
with different brands of track systems,
so it’s very easy to upgrade from traditional technologies to LEDs. It’s a seamless transition that allows retailers to
immediately reap the energy savings.”
The benefit of a seamless transition
Is There an OLED in Your Future?
Although LED lighting has achieved mainstream status, the technology continues to
evolve. What’s next? Organic LED lighting is characterized by an even, glare-free design
that creates light from a sheet of material, rather than a pinpoint as seen with traditional
LEDs. According to market research firm, Nanomarkets, Glen Allen, VA, OLEDs are already
hot in the displays of mobile phones and wearables, so future prospects for the OLED
lighting market will catapult the OLED materials market from around $900 million in
2014, to $3.7 billion in 2019. Why are the prospects so good?
With OLEDs, the difference in the quality of light is comparable to holding a tungsten
light bulb next to a fluorescent, but energy usage is also a factor, according to Alex Khayat,
CEO of Alkilu Enterprises, Los Angeles, CA. “In terms of lumen output, an OLED is far more
effective,” he says. “A 100-square millimeter OLED panel emits more than 300 lumens of
diffused light, and it doesn’t produce UV emissions. In order for LED to
emit this amount of lumens, forty 100-square-millimeter panels would
be needed. In addition, LEDs produce more heat and consume more
power. For example, a 100-square-millimeter OLED holds charge for more
than thirty hours, while an LED panel of the same power would need a
recharge in less than two hours. In addition, LED light is pointing inwards,
which decreases its area of illumination.”
Alkilu recently introduced an interesting demonstration of OLED
technology, the Triplit. At 5 inches by 5 inches, the Triplit is small and portable, but at 300 lumens (dimmable), it packs an amazing amount of light.
It squeezes 30 hours of operation from its Li-Po rechargeable battery, yet
requires only 2.5 hours to recharge.
For OLED lighting in interiors, Acuity Brands Inc., Atlanta, GA, just
announced the release of its first in a series of Commercial Office Solutions Sets. They combine the FS series of recessed LED Luminaires featuring eldoLED technology, with the company’s nLight control technology.
significant benefits.
For example, the direct
replacement gives
you deferred savings,
Triplit Portable Organic
LED (OLED) devices
because if you have
a product that needs
rewiring of the fixture
is fueling growth in another interesting
or a different power supply or driver
segment of the LED market: the “pluginstead of what’s already there, then
and-play” direct replacement category.
you have to add labor, and that means
These are LED lights designed to screw
an electrician. But you have to have a
into existing metal halide and fluorescompatible product. There are different
cent light fixtures, and they don’t require electronics in fluorescent fixtures. First,
rewiring or fixture changes. “The plugyou have the ballast that controls the
and-play capability is very attractive for
fluorescent lamp. With a modern elecconsumers and contractors and building tronic ballast, you have the benefits of
owners, because you don’t have to hire
instant on or rapid start, and dimming.
an electrician to just pull out a lamp and
With an older T12 magnetic ballast,
put in another,” says Hemmi.
it’s different, and another compatibilPlug-and-play products offer numer- ity issue is that commercial buildings
ous benefits, according to Steven Purdy, can have battery backup products for
marketing director at ELB Electronics,
emergency exit signs. So, not all plugand-play products out there are equal,
Arcadia, CA.
because some of the earlier designs and
“The technology has really prosome of the current designs aren’t comgressed,” he says. “And there are some
patible with all those types of products.”
Purdy’s often asked about the wisdom of powering an LED light with
the ballast from an existing fluorescent
fixture. “A ballast is a power supply for
fluorescent lamps, a driver is a power
supply for an LED lamp, and a generator is a power supply for an induction
system,” he explains. “But the bottom line is they’re all power supplies.
One of the common questions we
get is ‘Why would I want to operate
an LED lamp off of the ballast?’ But,
why wouldn’t you? It’s a power supply, and if you think of the evolution
of the product, electronic ballasts are
a proven technology. I can get an $8 or
$10 electronic ballast and operate these
lamps with much more confidence and
reliability at over a third to half the
cost of an LED driver that doesn’t have
the same reliability history.”
ELB Electronics is also offering wireless control technology for some of its
products, and according to CleaResult’s
Business Energy May 2015 29
Special Supplement
Hemmi, the lighting industry is at a
crossroads when it comes to controls.
“There’s a lot of talk in the utility
program world about advanced lighting controls, and where they’re going
as LEDs mature,” he says. “We’re seeing full integration of trough lighting
fixtures with daylight sensors and the
occupancy sensors that are built right
into the fixtures. They can be controlled
wirelessly so these two technologies
have emerged and you’ll see more and
more intelligent light fixtures with the
convenient control of LED lighting.”
Educating a new generation of engineers is an important factor in advancing
intelligent lighting control, according to
Mandeep Khera, vice president of Marketing and Channels, Daintree Networks,
Los Altos, CA. Daintree Networks is an
open wireless smart building solutions
provider of enterprise control and energy
management products. The company
recently announced its affiliate partnership with UC Davis’ California Lighting
Technology Center (CLTC) with the goal
of advancing lighting controls. The partnership focuses on collaboration efforts
to raise awareness about the benefits of
networked lighting controls.
“The idea is to educate the market
because a lot of companies don’t know
about these solutions,” says Khera.
“In fact, I have spoken at some large
conferences, and I always asked the
question: Did you know that you can
save up to 70% on your energy costs
and also gain operational efficiencies,
thanks to software wireless networking solutions? But very few people
say yes. So, you have to ask, why don’t
they know about these? Also, for students, it’s important for them to see
this technology, because we need more
engineers and installers, and those that
understand this type of technology.”
Daintree is providing its ControlScope wireless networked, open
standards based energy management
and monitoring solution for lighting
control. The ultimate focus is building
controls and efficiency, says Khera.
“We offer an advanced wireless
and network building control solution,” he says. “It’s based on open standards, and besides controls, we also
have an energy management layer on
“For students, it’s important for
them to see this technology,
because we need more
engineers and installers, and
those that understand this type
of technology.”
top and data analytics. What’s unique
about this solution is first we do multiapps, and we go beyond lighting with
our wireless controls, so we include
HVAC and plug loads, general purpose controls, and other things as well.
Because of that we have tremendous
energy efficiency savings—up to 70%,
and sometimes up to 90%.”
Those savings can come from a
variety of power consuming machines,
from exhaust fans to copiers. These can
be grouped into the category of plug
loads that consume power even when
they are shut off. Daintree offers a wireless controller that plugs into a wall and
shuts off power to an appliance.
“The advantage of the solution is
it is more like a platform,” says Khera.
“So you buy one solution, and you can
use it for everything—from lighting,
thermostat, plug loads, fans, and other
types of things. Now you don’t have to
buy multiple solutions and deal with
consolidating the data and integration
from a proprietary system. Our solution is open, and there’s one platform
for everything.”
The open source philosophy is a
growing trend, according to Hemmi.
He notes that the Northeast Energy
Efficiency Partnership is doing an
advanced lighting control demonstration study, and is looking at trends such
as open source and their impact on the
industry. Overall, Hemmi sees open
source standards as a positive move for
the marketplace and consistent with the
industry’s investment in research and
development (R&D).
Those big R&D budgets have
already achieved some impressive
results. Consider this: The DesignLights Consortium, an international
commercial LED lighting qualification
program, recently saw its Solid State
30 SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT www.BusinessEnergy.net
Lighting Qualified Products List (QPL)
surpass 50,000 products. The list is
a leading resource that distinguishes
quality high-efficiency LED products
in the commercial sector. It sets the bar
for efficiency program incentives across
the US and Canada, while influencing
performance and quality in manufacturer product development.
One consequence of this avalanche
of products is a benefit that’s sure to
please those business managers who
have yet to take advantage of LED technology. And that’s lower unit costs.
“We’ve seen cost decreases of 20 to
30% every six to eight months for quite
some time now,” says Hemmi. “Competition and pressures to reduce costs
have been substantial. We’re continuing
to see those forces and downward pressures on prices. At the same time, the
efficiency of the product has climbed,
and that’s enabled a lot of new form
factors in designs and better performance. So we have better efficiencies
than the incumbent technologies and
that means greater savings.”
Ultimately, the picture for the LED
lighting looks very good. Lower prices,
higher efficiency, and open source
solutions that encourage innovation
and compatibility. With such positive
attributes, it’s fair to say that this technology is a safe bet for most any business looking to save money and boost
energy efficiency. BE
Ed Ritchie writes frequently on energy
and technology issues.
BE
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