The electrical contracting community experienced significant economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic but is somewhat optimistic about 2021. That is one key finding from the 2020 Commercial/Industrial/Institutional (CII) Lighting Trends Survey, conducted by ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR in October among the magazine’s Subscriber Research Panel. The survey and article were my contribution to the magazine’s December 2020 issue.
Among the key findings:
* A majority of respondents said the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their 2020 business revenues, with the majority of these respondents saying their overall revenues decreased, not just for lighting.
* Overall, respondents are optimistic about 2021, with more saying they expect their revenues related to lighting in all three markets will increase in 2021 than those saying it will decrease. About 30%–40%, however, believe their revenues will remain unchanged.
* A majority of respondents are familiar with major lighting trends, with the greatest familiarity or actual work experience being with wireless lighting controls (73%), color-tunable lighting (63%) and networked lighting controls (61%). Three-fourths of respondents are least familiar with germicidal lighting and the IoT, which is not surprising, because these are relatively new trends. However, upward of three-quarters of respondents who are aware of the technologies are comfortable specifying and installing each of them, with the least comfort for germicidal lighting, IoT and networked lighting controls.
* More than 60% of respondents have discussed lighting quality and color-tunable LED lighting as lighting product features/trends with customers. Nearly half have discussed networked lighting controls. Customers were most interested in lighting quality, followed by color tuning and networked control. However, more than three-quarters were somewhat or very interested in all five technologies.
* The average respondent considers ECs as having a somewhat high degree of influence in selecting lighting equipment for new construction and major renovation CII projects and the highest degree of influence in lighting retrofits.
Check out the article here.
