The lighting industry has enjoyed a tremendous boom in available light sources, efficiency and technologies that make lighting retrofits a sure bet when it comes to saving energy. Building owners now have new light sources and lighting controls such as LEDs, compact fluorescent, induction and hi-lumen fluorescent lamps to choose from as well as some of the older “tried and true” technologies that continue to improve and provide cost effective and efficient alternatives. These include Pulse Start metal halide, ceramic metal halide and HIR halogen lamps, just to name a few.
Lighting has also become high tech and shares many components with the mobile electronic devices that are so common in our everyday lives such as cell phones, touch pads and mp3 players. As we all know, today’s newest hi-tech gadget can be tomorrow’s obsolete paper weight. The same can be said about some of the latest lighting technologies available today.
At first blush, it’s pretty obvious with the fast pace growth of lighting why some people are still on the fence about retrofitting their old, inefficient and sometimes obsolete lighting in their buildings that continues to drain their energy budgets but still work. There is no sign of the lighting industry slowing down anytime soon, so it’s time to jump in and start saving money on your building lighting.
So when is the right time to do a lighting retrofit? What technologies are the best to spend your hard earned dollars on, will it be obsolete after it is installed and will the energy savings really payback the cost of the lighting retrofit? These are some of the topics that we will discuss in future posts and are usually the first questioned that need to be asked when considering a lighting retrofit project.
An experienced lighting designer who is well versed in lighting retrofits, design tools and current lighting technologies will provide the most energy savings and occupant comfort utilizing the right mix of lighting technologies throughout the project.