Energy Efficient Lighting Upgrade Chicago

Efficient, Interior Lighting Solutions in Chicago

Interior lighting, whether in an office, café, library or warehouse often goes unnoticed and simply blends into the background, while the associated expenditure gets rolled into overall operating costs without much thought. However, outdated or inefficient lighting can negatively impact both the ambiance of a space and the bottom line.

For nearly a decade, our company, Verde has helped clients save money by identifying wasteful interior lighting and providing energy and cost-efficient solutions.   We offer a complete service starting from a free initial assessment, to installing new energy efficient lighting, to completing your rebate paperwork. Our end-to-end service means you can rest assured that all stages of the project are managed by us personally, not outsourced, and you always have a single point of contact.

Let Us Enlighten You - An Energy Audit for interior LED Lighting

1. Get an Assessment

Call us and we will come out free of charge and provide a full assessment including your current energy use, suggested fixture upgrades, and long-term projected savings including rebates. We know our clients each have unique needs, which is why we work with everyone to offer bespoke solutions. So, if you are looking to upgrade your interior lighting without losing the ambiance of your space, or you would like to improve your employees’ work environment with kinder lighting while still saving money, we can help with it all.

Interior LED lighting has the fastest payback of almost any energy efficiency project.  And adding controls to an LED project adds lifetime usage, saves deeper energy costs and just plain looks cool.

2. Get the Work Done - Upgrade to interior LED Lighting

Once we’ve determined what your specific needs are, we create a plan for executing the required work. We use our own in-house installation team for a high quality installation experience.

There are two main options for installing energy and cost-efficient LED lights: installing new LED lighting fixtures or retrofitting your original fixtures to allow for LED light usage. Both approaches have pros and cons.

Installing completely new LED lighting will come with a higher upfront cost and may take more time to install as the old fixtures will need to be removed and disposed of first, and possible further electrical wiring work may be required. However, once that is complete, installation is relatively easy and LED fixtures require very little aftercare or maintenance. This option is one to consider if you are planning a brand-new space or a comprehensive renovation of an existing space and have set aside a budget to upgrade your lighting.

A typical LED fixture has a lifespan of 50,000-70,000 hours of usage, which means that from the get-go you have a cost-efficient lighting in place.  And adding controls to an LED interior lighting system adds hours to this lifetime, because a dimmed or turned off LED system lasts longer.

Retrofitting LED lighting is another good option with similar benefits to installing brand new LED fixtures. Retrofitting involves retaining your old light fixtures but installing additional components in order to make them LED compatible. Adding retrofit components is a faster and more affordable upgrade as it makes energy efficient LED lighting quickly available, has a very long lifespan, and requires little maintenance. The upfront cost of retrofitting, including labor, is less than installing all new LED fixtures. However, do consider that the energy capacity of your current light fittings dictates the maximum lumen strength you can use with the retrofit components.

In terms of retrofit, we typically recommend a Type C approach.  This means that you remove all old fluorescent ballasts and T5, T8 or T12 lamps, and add an LED driver and tube system in its place.  This retrofit is cost effective, brighter, and saves a ton of energy. As opposed to a Type A (use existing ballast) or Type B (ballast bypass) – Type C LED interior lighting retrofits have the longest lasting maintenance savings.  And the Philips branded LED tubes we use for all retrofits are plastic (so safe for food prep areas and kid areas), as well as have a 70,000 hour lifetime – the best in the business.  We are strong believers that longer lasting products are better for the environment, because they save from landfill and waste costs.

3. Get a Fast Payback on LED Interior LED Lighting

In order to qualify for rebates and incentives from ComEd’s Energy Efficiency Program, contractors who undertake your lighting upgrades must be Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) certified. Moreover, we are experienced in identifying and applying for the most beneficial rebates and incentives for our clients whether they own residential property, business premises or public sector facilities.

It also means that we know exactly how to fill out all the correct paperwork to save you time and take the guesswork and stress out of getting money back.  Since Verde Energy Efficiency Experts has applied for and received over 1,000 interior LED LIghting incentive projects in Illinois and Wisconsin – we really know what we are doing for rebate applications.

incentives in 2024 are the strongest they have been in years, and the lumens per watt of LED is the highest it has ever been.

To even drive savings deeper, consider sensors and controls on the Philips Evokit. These modern sensors not only can determine occupancy, but can also harvest daylight and dim lights when ambient daylight is available.  This is called advanced lighting controls or networked lighting, which lights work together as an advanced system to save more energy.  And since rebates are based on energy savings, we find these projects have the highest incentives and fastest payback on the market.

4. Track Your Energy Reduction from LED Interior Lighting

Interior LED Lighting reduces energy usage compared to fluorescent lighting.  Hard stop.  Compared to a T12 fluorescent indoor lighting system, the energy savings by converting to indoor LED lighting is up to 80%.  Compared to a T8 fluorescent indoor lighting system, the energy savings for LED interior lighting systems is up to 60%.  And even modern T5 systems can be replaced with LED interior lighting and save almost 50% of energy usage, both for high output T5 systems and T5 high efficiency systems.

Since interior lighting is not your entire energy bill, your entire bill will not go down 50% to 80%. But it will reduce significantly, often as high as 20%.  And in terms of the investment, the payback is often between 6 months and 2 years, because of the generous utility rebates we receive in Illinois due to the CEJA law passed in 2021.  And with our average utility rate at $.14 per kWh and only going up – the benefits continue to increase while costs for indoor LED Lighting systems continue to decrease.

Finally, and not to be underestimated, are maintenance savings.  For easy to reach places with a full maintenance staff, there are huge savings in terms of labor hours saved and the cost of ballasts and lamp replacement, as well as recycling old fluorescent lamps safely in Chicagoland.  But for those that do not have their own staff – costs are even higher when contractors need to be brought in to replace lamps and ballasts.  And for hard to reach places, which may require a lift – the savings can be twice as high in terms of interior fluorescent maintenance savings as the energy costs!

5. Look at Your Exterior Lights for Opportunities

Exterior Lights are used more in the winter and less in the summer. Most of our customers start to notice they have issues with their lights in the fall, when the days start to get shorter and shorter. LED lights require far less maintenance than traditional lighting, and outdoor lighting is often more expensive to maintain. And of course, the LED lighting uses far less energy as well for an additional reason to upgrade.

LED lights can brighten a parking lot or space, and make your building feel safer and more accessible. In fact, you may notice buildings with older lighting have a more yellow exterior lighting, while LED lighting is brighter and crisper. There are several ways to upgrade older lighting, including a new fixture or a simple retrofit of the fixture. Both are cost effective, and we always recommend a new photocell to keep a light off during the day.

Finally, don’t forget about your outdoor sign! Those signs often have very high output fluorescent lamps inside, consuming large amounts of energy. New LED retrofits make the sign brighter and longer lasting. The new LED retrofits also save energy and huge maintenance costs by avoiding expensive bucket truck and lift rentals on many sign applications.

6. Consider LED Sensors and Controls

When replacing your older lighting with LED lighting – it is a good time to consider a control system to keep the lights off or dimmed when not needed.

First, photocells for your outdoor lights are so important. Lights left on outside during the daylight are a waste of energy. But each hour they are left on also makes it one more hour sooner that they will need to be replaced. So photocells save maintenance costs and are a simple tool to save a ton of energy.

Next, occupancy sensors are essential to consider in low usage areas of a building, like storage rooms, closets, and more. These low used areas often have lights on all the time, so keeping them off by more than just a turned off light switch is a very fast way to save money. In fact, some sensors require you to turn them on, and then automatically turn off when not used. These are called vacancy sensors. Occupancy sensors are similar, but they both turn lights on and off based on occupancy. Vacancy sensors can help you avoid false positives, like when people walk by an area and turn on a light in a room they don’t need. Both are great tools and have a place in energy efficiency.

Finally, advanced lighting systems can do even more by having sensors that detect motion and daylight. They can connect to each other, creating a web of even more advanced lighting. In addition – they can leave lights on at a dim level when not being used, saving money but not making an office area feel dim and depressing. For almost a decade, Verde has been installing and commissioning the Philips Interact System, an advanced network lighting control system that integrates to almost all of our product offerings.