Guest post by Christina Halfpenny, Executive Director and CEO of the DesignLights Consortium.

This past summer featured relentless hot, humid weather across many parts of the US, with sweltering days spanning into one heat wave after another. As air conditioners were pressed into overdrive, soaring electricity consumption inevitably spiked peak energy demand, often the most expensive energy to supply.

In the wake of peak demand days around the country, it’s an opportune time to consider the economic and environmental importance of reducing the peak – as well as how we can derive that value through energy efficiency programs that commercial and industrial electricity customers participate in already.

According to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), demand charges can account for up to 70 percent of monthly electricity bills for many commercial and industrial customers. Any action that holds down peak demand has a positive impact on the bottom line for these demand-billed customers. Peak shaving can also reduce the need to turn on seldom used “peaking plants”- typically the least efficient and most polluting generating facilities – or negate the need for supplemental generating capacity.

While air conditioning drives the summer peak, the lighting sector has role to play in reducing peak demand. Recent research indicates that role could be substantial if states and EE programs adopt policies that accurately calculate and value the energy savings potential of advanced lighting systems – namely those that pair state-of-the-art LED lighting with networked lighting controls (NLC).

We’ve known for some time the increased value NLCs can bring to LED lighting projects, as well as their ability to advance building intelligence by collecting data on space utilization, occupancy and other factors that enable building systems to respond to the real-time needs of both facility managers and occupants.  In terms of energy savings, a September 2020 study by the DLC and Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance found that the ability of NLCs to boost the energy efficiency of stand-alone LED commercial lighting projects averaged 49 percent, varying from 28 to 68 percent across eight different building types.

Adding to this, a joint DLC-Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) study published last year found that efficiency programs that combine lighting technology upgrades with NLCs could see an additional 22 percent lifetime energy savings, on average.  Importantly, this first-of-its-kind analysis found that taking a systems approach to EE program support for LEDs and NLCs could yield summer peak savings of over 37,000 megawatts by 2035 – equal to seventy-four 500-megawatt power plants, or 5 percent of the generating capacity of the entire 2017 fleet of U.S fossil fuel power plants.

These savings risk staying on the table, however, without updates to EE program policies and regulations. Currently, EE programs underestimate the true value of NLCs by ignoring savings possible by installing lighting upgrades and NLCs as an integrated system, as well as by over-reliance on annual (first-year) savings rather than the lifetime savings potential of NLCs.

The peak demand impact possible through installation of advanced lighting systems was recently emphasized by a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) study detailing how EE programs can help utilities meet peak demand at relatively low cost. Based on a survey of 36 investor-owned utilities in nine states, LBNL’s research found that “electricity efficiency programs appear to be a relatively low cost way for utilities to meet peak demand, compared to the capital cost of other resources that can be used to meet peak demand.”

Specific to the role of NLCs in reducing the peak, LBNL noted, “our results suggest that electricity programs that reduce peak demand merit strong consideration by utilities and regional grid operators. Further, ‘active’ efficiency measures such as lighting controls enable active management of efficiency resources, offering additional grid services.”

This point goes to the ability of some lighting controls to respond to demand, seamlessly reducing energy consumption when electrical load is heavy. In this way, NLCs have distinct peak shaving benefits over traditional efficiency measures that cannot be easily dispatched as needed.  While not all NLCs have this capability, there are 32 systems on the DLC’s Qualified Products List that do – in addition to a number of other capabilities like energy monitoring and plug load control.

The technology exists to not only greatly increase the efficacy of commercial lighting, but to capitalize on its largely untapped potential to reduce peak demand. It’s time for regulation and practice to catch up with technology.

The international science community is clear that even hotter summers are in our future. By adopting strategies that accentuate and leverage a systems approach that captures the ability of LEDs and NLCs to impact peak demand, EE programs have a valuable opportunity to reduce the volume of electricity society needs to handle a warming climate.

Craig DiLouie

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