On October 18, SJF and CED held their fourth CleanLinks event this year at Hotel Indigo in RTP, North Carolina. The event brought together over 100 cleantech business professionals in the Triangle interested in growing the fields of renewable energy, energy efficiency, the smart grid, green building products and smart lighting, which was the topic of the evening. The event featured a panel – Lighting up NC – Sustainably – which assembled the views of LED lighting manufacturers, supply chain solutions providers, utilities and customers to provide the state of clean lighting in both North Carolina and internationally.
The engaging discussion from the panel and audience exceeded the time limits of the event so we wanted to capture some more thoughts from the panel in follow up Q&A.
The Panelists:
MS: Michael Shratz, Director of Marketing, Dialight Corporation
BH: Bob Henderson, Technical Lighting Consultant, Progress Energy Carolinas
DH: Dan Howe, Assistant City Manager, City of Raleigh
1) What technology, economic or market barriers still exist for ubiquitous LED lighting use?
MS: The upfront cost of LED technology is still high in some applications. As the technology improves and the cost of the bulbs and fixtures decreases, the market will become more accepting as most understand the benefits.
DH: I still think there is a lot of hesitation because people don’t understand the technology, why it is different and why it costs so much. They take one look at the price tag and get sticker shock and go back to the tried-and-true. I think with more and more installations all the time, and prices dropping this will break down and the products will see broader acceptance.
BH: The cost of LEDs are still high – as much as 3 to 10 times more than the cost of traditional lighting. Dependant on burning hours and amount of energy saved for payback. Longer burning hours provide a shorter payback. A change from incandescent to LED generally has a shorter payback than CFL to LED because the energy savings delta is greater for incandescent.
2) North Carolina seems to be establishing a strong ecosystem for both manufacturing and implementation of smart lighting. What attributes does North Carolina have that enable this technology and industry to flourish here in the state?
MS: The state has a long standing history of LED technology being developed and manufactured here. Progressive cities such as Raleigh have been a catalyst for trials of new LED based products, as well as large installations which have enabled worldwide attention to the state for the innovative measures. It is important as new fixtures become available, the state continue to install LED technology were applicable and highlight the findings (energy & maintenance savings, foot-candle measurements etc).
BH: Progress Energy and Duke Energy both have incentive programs for energy efficient lighting. Progress Energy can provide an incentive for LED lighting if the project qualifies under the custom program. The payback needs to be greater than 1 year and less than 7 years per approved program guidelines. Generally speaking but not a guarantee, if a commercial or industrial facility has 5,000 or more lighting operating hours per year, the chances are good that LED will pay out and an incentive could then be paid. Each customer project is different and must be looked at to determine if it qualifies for an incentive. There is currently not an LED incentive program approved for residential customers. For more details, visit the following Energy Efficiency in Business website: http://www.progress-energy.com/custservice/carbusiness/efficiency/programs/eebiz/index.asp
3) What can North Carolina policy makers or communities do to help continue the growth of the clean lighting industry?
MS: As a manufacturer in the state of North Carolina who is looking to continue adding employees to our Roxboro facility, policy makers of NC can aide this process by creating grants or tax incentives for Clean Tech companies based locally.
DH: At the State level, I think if this is going to be an emphasis in economic development they have got to start by encouraging its use in State projects. Right now the opposite is true as the State Construction Office is discouraging the use of LED. Also, the State Energy Office can help by allowing some of its grant funding to be used by municipalities to buy down the initial cost of using LED in street lighting, particularly in Progress Energy’s service area where PE’s “customer-owned” tariff has potential to generate savings in the short run.
BH: Encourage the use of energy efficient lighting technologies through education and promotional programs.
4) What affordable and accessible options exist in the market today that businesses, municipalities and residences should know about?
MS: There are LED lighting solutions for just about every application where traditional lighting exists today. Whether you purchase lights for parking lots, warehouses, office buildings (inside & out), streets, bridges, tunnels, petro-chemical plants, water treatment facilities, the opportunity to cut down energy and maintenance costs is there.
DH: There are multiple good low-bay LED fixtures out there in the market today. You can get three good bids pretty easily in that field. High-bay lighting is just coming on, and the next year will see a lot more good high-bay solutions. Exterior area lighting is also an area where there are a number of good fixtures available, and competition in addition to advancing technology is driving the prices down. There are solar-powered fixtures also available for areas where running power can be costly. Interior “can” replacements are definitely viable and cost-effective now. We are going to see a lot of 2×2 and 2×4 drop-ceiling fixtures emerging in the next couple of years, also.
BH: EPA Act of 2005 – has tax incentives for those that qualify. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 – has information on phase-out of incandescent lamps beginning in 2012.
