For years Synergy Lighting has proposed and sold energy saving lighting to commercial businesses.  However, from time to time, we have ran into situations where an Electrician or Amateur Lighting Sales Person walks into a customers door and tells them that they don’t have energy saving lighting.   For a business owner who has invested into energy saving products or systems, these statements can often leave a business owner feeling uneasy about their previous purchase.  This results in a clearly defined need for a customer of any kind to understand a few basic principles about energy savings and a basic understanding of electrician knowledge.

Electricians vs. Lighting Professionals

Electrician’s are usually masters of their trade, however, when it comes to commercial lighting, electricians depend on the expertise of a Lighting Professional to perform the specification of products, application, layout and design.   Being a master electrician does not mean that the electrician knows much about lighting, that is not their job.  The product knowledge and expertise comes from the Lighting Professionals.   Surely the electrician has the knowledge, skills and ability to ensure that proper wiring is pulled and the specified voltage is used to power a lighting fixture, but electricians always count on the Lighting Professional to know what products are to be used.   This knowledge only comes from years of of professional, specialty training in commercial lighting products.   A lighting profesisonal possess an acute ability to determine the proper products, lumens, color, and placement that an electrician must contend with when installing the lighting system.

There are Two Basic Forms Of Energy Savings

The Energy Saving System

Energy saving systems are designed to implement energy savings throughout a commercial building or area based on the existing types of lighting being used.    This system can be established by using dedicated “Energy Saving” Products, or by using alternate products that manipulate the use of lumen’s/per watt such as Scotopically Richor High Lumen products.   An example of this is replacing (4) Cool White Lamps with (2) High Lumen, High Scotopically Rich Lamps.   In cases such as this, the older cool white produce much less light than 2 of the newer high lumen lamps.   Though the High Lumen Natural White Lamps are not independently rated as an energy saving product, they are however an integral part of an energy saving system, thus causing an 86 Watts Per Fixture savings.

In the use of an energy saving system, an Electrician or Ameteur Lighting Salesmen may state to a customer that they  did not buy energy saving products, and mislead a customer into an alternate purchase they do not need.   This is because in an Energy Saving System, they can not see the “Before” to understand the impact of the “After” system installed.

Energy Saving Products

The products on the market that are label as “energy saving” are typically measured by lumen’s/per watt and independently marketed as energy saving.  However this again may be a misrepresentation as it may be referring to “when used as a system”   Typically true energy saving products, such as an F32T8 Lamp compared to an F34T12 Cool White lamp are in fact a true energy saving product, and usually these products require the use of an equipment change such as a ballast replacement, or in the case of Compact Fluorescent Lamps, merely the removal of an incandescent lamp and the placement of the CFL in the lamp socket.

What Are The Important Factors To Consider

A strong focus on “Energy Saving Products” is not the most important or significant factor in determining true energy savings.   The greatest real Energy Savings, comes from the implementation of an Energy Saving Lighting System which may or may not use specifically marketed products that claim to be energy savings or long lasting.  An example of this is the replacement of T12 Lamps to T8 Lamps.   A typical 2×4 Fluorescent Troffer converted from T12 to T8 (Labeled Energy Saving Product) has an average cost of $64.00 and yields a 68.5 watt reduction, where as the same T12 fixture delamped to High Lumen / Scotopically Rich Lamps (Not Independantly Label As Energy Saving) has an average cost of $24.00 and yields a 87.5 watt reduction.

For more information on energy savings consult a lighting professional, or view our website and call Synergy Lighting for a free consultation.

Phone: (941)-756-4844

Toll Free: (877) 220-5483

e-mail: sales@synergylightingusa.com