I wrote this article for the July issue of tED Magazine. Reprinted with permission.
LED performance continues to increase, making it increasingly competitive with traditional lighting, while costs continue to fall, making it increasingly attractive for purchase. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), between 2005 and 2013, average efficacy of cool-white LED packages increased eight percent per year, while average costs (based on high-volume purchases) decreased 36 percent per year.
The combination of rising performance and falling costs has put LED on the table not only for new construction but as a retrofit option for buildings with long operating hours and high energy rates. The zone of opportunity has been extended as energy efficiency organizations have aligned their prescriptive rebate programs to support adoption of LED lighting. DOE estimated that in 2010, about 2 billion lamps were in service in 4,900 commercial buildings, of which only 38 million were LED. The LED revolution therefore represents a potential staggering emerging sales opportunity in the existing buildings market.
In this month’s LED column, we’ll look at three distinct product categories—lamps, luminaires and controls—to investigate this opportunity.
Lamps
“The demand for LED lamps is tremendous,” says Alfred LaSpina, Product Group Manager LED, OSRAM SYLVANIA. “Commercial applications in particular can benefit immensely from LED lighting and the energy savings.”
For example, a 60W incandescent lamp can be replaced with a 10W LED lamp producing equivalent lumens, generating 80 percent energy savings while extending service life to 25,000 hours.
A wide variety of omnidirectional and directional LED lamps is available for ready replacement of existing incandescent, halogen and fluorescent lamps. In terms of time and complexity, it’s a very straightforward retrofit.
“The ceiling is an excellent location for directional LED lamps, such as reflector and downlight applications,” LaSpina says. “Think of conference rooms, hospitality locations and back/front-of-the-house foodservice locations.”
He points to three major trends in LED replacement lamp design. First, users are looking for familiar form factors, so manufacturers are working toward providing products that imitate the shape and appearance of traditional lamps such as the A-lamp. A second trend is in “smart lighting,” which provides control with connectivity between the lamp and mobile devices, not just wall controls. A third trend is continuing reduction in cost.
“While it’s a growing trend in residential lighting, smart lighting is the next trend in commercial applications,” says LaSpina. “Electrical distributors can offer their clients not just light ON/OFF and dimming control, but mood and application lighting. Being a part of the smart connected lighting trend provides electrical distributors new opportunities to add value for their existing customers and differentiate themselves from their competitors when targeting new business.”
When not using smart lighting for dimming control, he advises distributors to ensure the lamp is paired with an electronic dimmer that meets current standards (notably NEMA SSL-7A) and is otherwise compatible.
Luminaires
“Current demand for LED luminaires in existing commercial buildings is on the rise,” says Jolene Kmetz, CLMC, National Sales & Marketing, Precision-Paragon [P2]. “Future needs/requests will be even greater with the utility demand for the most energy-efficient replacements to qualify for rebate incentives.”
She says typical energy savings when converting from a traditional luminaire to LED is 40+ percent with a payback period as short as two years or less. With the longevity of LED luminaires, the maintenance benefit can feature as a strong element of the sale—in some applications, this benefit may even overshadow energy savings. Kmetz adds that striplights and recessed troffers are the low-hanging fruit on the sales tree.
“The longevity of the product supports the payback period by lessening the costs associated with maintaining lamps, group relamping, ballast failures, etc.,” she says.
Many LED luminaires are available with dimming standard, enabling economical lighting control in existing buildings. Some sensors also feature onboard occupancy and photosensors to extend energy savings with minimal installation.
“Demand for lighting control/dimming in luminaires is extremely high,” Kmetz says. “Being able to control luminaire output is extremely beneficial for energy savings, payback and longevity of the product.”
Controls
“There are huge new control opportunities tied to LED luminaires,” says Charles Knuffke, Systems VP, WattStopper. “Most if not all manufacturers of commercial LED products include a 0-10V dimming interface or offer it as a standard option, which makes them readily connected to energy-saving devices. This opens up options for partial-ON, partial-OFF, daylighting and demand response in additional to significantly higher personal control of the lighting.”
In states that have adopted the latest generation of energy codes, lighting controls may be required in a retrofit. This would include, at a minimum, automatic shutoff and local space controls.
Lighting controls produce high energy savings, but the LED load is much smaller, which can negatively affect payback periods for some options. Knuffke believes daylight harvesting will become harder to justify in smaller spaces in an existing building, but sees a high value for other strategies.
“Personal control of lighting is essential to avoid occupant issues in the space,” he says. “Occupancy sensors of all kinds—vacancy, partial-ON, partial-OFF—will continue to make sense for the long term.”
Meanwhile, the unique characteristics of the LED platform are enabling new control opportunities with extraordinary potential, such as color tuning.
“Color tuning will provide significant new control opportunities as long as it meets the key requirements of being simple to set up and allows for an easy way for individuals to adjust when desired,” Knuffke notes. “The major obstacle right now is the lack of a standard controls protocol for color tuning fixtures. I think a lot of folks are hoping a standard becomes the clear choice quickly so as to eliminate the risk of installing these fixtures.”
In existing buildings, luminaires are available with onboard occupancy and photosensors, which can simplify installation. However, Knuffke notes, this may be overkill for some spaces. As always, match the lighting and controls to the application.
When implementing controls, he also advises to ensure all control devices and luminaires are compatible—that is, based on the same control method. He also advises taking into account any unintended consequences of a retrofit. “If an LED has a low-running wattage but a significant inrush, that needs to be taken into account when determining the control device’s wattage rating,” Knuffke adds.
Getting comfortable with LED
With its high energy savings, longevity and good controllability, LED lighting has a compelling case for retrofit. But LED is also constantly improving, also creating a case to wait. A customer who waits a year may get a better, cheaper product.
The bottom line is that if an LED product generates satisfactory lighting performance with an attractive return qualifying the retrofit for investment, waiting may gain little when one considers the opportunity cost of delaying.
Knuffke understands the concern, however, and has a solution—increasing standardization to enable easier maintenance and future upgrades.
“Building owners are concerned about the sizable changes going on in lighting and controls,” he says. “While we’ve become conditioned to buying a new phone or computer every couple of years, buildings are huge investments for a lot of folks, and they don’t want to worry about having to replace systems they’ve installed just a few years ago because a newer and better system is now available. To assuage the worry, we should be looking on how we can standardize the lighting elements, protocols and devices we provided, which hopefully they would see as reduced risk for future investments.”
For distributors, one of the biggest challenges is instead identifying good suppliers and products. LED has attracted many new manufacturers, and the technology itself is a marked departure from traditional technology. For this reason, LaSpina, Kmetz and Knuffke recommend making the effort to qualify products and suppliers.
“Know the company and product you are looking to promote,” says Kmetz. “Order test installation products to ensure the product fits properly and performs to customer desires. Distributors can ask for references and warranty documents and review reputation and age of the company they are looking to purchase products from.”
Otherwise, while light delivery and control technology is changing, lighting is still a familiar field. Understand the application and what the customer needs, and then sell them lighting that satisfies those needs.
“Know the application, what the customer is looking for in both planned and realized energy savings, as well as the lighting specifications,” says LaSpina. “Work with the manufacturer’s lighting team to understand beforehand what the lighting needs are and how to best address them. Is it accent lighting, general use, overhead? What lighting controls? Having that information addressed first helps mitigate problems.”
He adds: “Look at a similar/prior job as a case study. Success is not just in winning the order and having a seamless installation—it’s when the customer recommends you and the product to do it for another division or fellow customer.”
