Lighting: Here you can get the biggest bang for your buck. The energy savings are predictable and independent of the weather. So any time of year the savings start immediately after installation.
Addressable Lighting: All of these lead to multifaceted benefits. In short you get better, more efficient lighting that is more reliable and cheaper to maintain.
Energy Efficiency Methods: These methods change the lighting, not the way you use it.
Savings: The savings vary from about 50% to 75% for each fixture.
Performance Payments (No Out of Pocket Costs): With Performance Payments after the Lighting Upgrade you pay the Energy Services Company (ESCO) what you save each month.
They will set you up with a payment plan based on the predicted Before and After lighting electricity costs.
After the payment period you will realize the full savings of positive cash flow forever.
(We can say "forever" because you will still maintain you lighting system but it will now cost less because you will now have less parts with longer life.)
This approach does not negatively affect your cash flow up-front and puts all the risk on the ESCO to ensure that you will save energy and hence money.
So even though you will be making payments to the ESCO they are with the money you are saving on your electric bill so there is essentially no out-of-pocket costs.
If your utility or state offer incentives for saving energy this can come off the top to further reduce your payment period which will accelerate your journey to really save big.
Tax Benefits: The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT 2005) has been further extended thru December 2013.
With this you may be able to get a $0.60 per square foot tax deduction for doing a very effective lighting energy efficiency project.
As with most Tax Deductions there are some tricky rules and exceptions that may affect how much of your facility's space is actually eligible.
Either way, the opportunity is there and should be carefully looked at if you expect to have profits to deduct against.
Lighting Terminology: T# represents diameter is 1/8 inches.
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