Will the T12 ban effect our company here in Ontario?

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Yes. If you’re still using T12 fluorescent lighting in your business now is a great time to make the change to an energy-efficient alternative. Here is the reason: the provision of the Federal Minimum Energy Standard mandated the manufacturing of T12 fluorescent bulbs to be phased out in 2012. This means you would have a hard time finding replacement fluorescent bulbs after that.

An equally compelling reason to make the move is savings! T12’s cost far more to operate than T8 or T5 lamps with electronic ballasts. Plus… incentives available through the Ontario Power Authority’s Save-on-Energy program provide generous financial support to encourage businesses to make the switch.

Will these incentives still be available after the ban? Good question – by why take the chance. Once your incentive has bee approved you have up to 12-months to have your project installed. We believe the time to act is now.

What do our incandescent bulbs cost to operate?

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Many small businesses have already switched to energy-efficient lighting but there are still plenty of holdouts.  Some business owners don’t like the look of twisty compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), or they find LEDs and CFLs light too glaringly bright. Higher upfront costs of new lighting technologies scare away others.  However, it’s worth taking a new look at energy-efficient lighting, if you haven’t already.

Here’s a look at the potential cost savings of making the switch:

Say you have one 60-watt incandescent light bulb that stays on for 60 hours per week and thus uses 3,600 watts per week. That’s 187,200 watts per year, or 1,872 kilowatts. If you pay 10-cents per kilowatt hour for electricity, that bulb costs you roughly $19 per year. Multiply that across 10 incandescent bulbs, and you’re looking at an annual lighting electricity cost of about $190.

Replacing those 10 bulbs with 14-watt CFLs might cost $20. But you would pay only about $44 in electricity each year – a $136 annual electricity savings. (The standard price of LEDs is still quite a bit higher – perhaps $20 per bulb – but that is expected to drop substantially in coming years.)

What sort of energy savings can I get by switching to CFL’s?

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Research has shown that CFLs are up to four times more efficient than incandescent bulbs. A consumer can replace a 100 watt incandescent bulb with a 22 watt CFL for the same amount of light as CFLs use 50 – 80% less energy.

These types of savings really add up, and support the rationale to ban inefficient bulbs throughout the world. For example, in Zimbabwe the Energy and Power Development minister Elton Mangoma last week said the tender for the distribution of five million CFLs will be conducted in the next two weeks. Mangoma said the development would result in the country saving between 200 and 300MW of power.

Are people making the switch to energy efficient lighting?

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Yes! In fact, a Department of Energy (DOE) report released on January 24th, 2012 shows that the adoption of energy-efficient lighting products in the United States has increased over the last decade. Looking at the broad trends, the study shows that in 2010, lighting used approximately 700 terawatt-hours (TWh), or nearly 19% of the electricity produced in the United States. Of the total energy used for lighting, the commercial sector consumed nearly half, or 349 TWh, primarily with fluorescent lighting products. While nearly 6 billion light bulbs are installed in the residential sector compared to approximately 2 billion lamps in the commercial buildings sector, the mostly incandescent residential lamps were not used nearly as much per day, on average, as lights in the commercial sector were used. Also, the average system efficacy (a measure of the amount of light provided per watt of power consumed) of installed lighting increased from 45 lumens per watt in 2001 to 58 lumens per watt in 2010, due mainly to a move from incandescent to compact fluorescent lamps in the residential sector, and from T12 to more-efficient T8 and T5 fluorescent lamps in the commercial and industrial sectors.

Ontario’s Save-ON-Energy program – and what it can mean for your business

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If you’re not familiar with the tremendous cost sharing programs available to your business through Ontario’s Save-ON-Energy program, now’s the time to get on-board. For example, wouldn’t it be nice to replace dated, inefficient equipment with modern energy efficient equipment that can lower your operating costs by 50% or more – and have the government pick up as much as half the total project cost?

Does this sound too good to be true? What’s the catch you may ask…?

The truth is it costs more to build new power generation plants than it does to provide incentive programs to reduce demand. Whether it’s atomic power plants, coal-fired or gas-fired, solar or wind, the cost per kilowatt to generate new power comes at a very high price.

Therefore the smart thing to do is to entice people to use less electricity – and that’s exactly what the Save-ON-Energy program is all about.

What equipment does this program cover?

Save-ON-Energy will cover up to 50% of your costs for:

  • Lighting retrofits
  • Lighting controls
  • HVAC redesign
  • Chiller replacement
  • Variable speed drives
  • Improvement of thermal performance of a building envelope through measures such as increased insulation, installation of high performance windows and frames, low emissive window glazing or low emissive roof barriers.

Which retrofit generally offers the greatest return on investment (ROI) and shortest payback?

When it comes to energy savings, energy efficient lighting is truly the low hanging fruit. Lighting retrofits are easy to calculate, easy to measure, and easy to install in most cases. You can expect to reduce your energy costs by 50%+ by simply replacing or retrofitting your existing light fixtures with high efficiency fixtures. And by adding lighting controls savings go even higher.

How do I know if my building is eligible for the Save-ON-Energy program?

The retrofit program for Commercial or Institutional Facilities is open to owners or lessees of:

  • Commercial spaces or buildings, such as offices, retail and grocery stores, restaurants, hotels and warehouses.
  • Institutional buildings, including hospitals, universities, municipal halls and arenas.
  • Multi-family buildings, such as apartments (including low income and social housing) or condominiums.
  • Agricultural facilities, including dairy, swine or poultry farms, greenhouses and nurseries.

Do you have a LIGHTING RETROFIT example showing a company’s actual savings?

Yes…    Facility:   A Magna plant Southern, ON.

Existing Fixtures

  • T12 fixtures throughout the offices + T12 task lights in plant
  • 400W Metal Halide highbay fixtures throughout the plant

Annual Savings:         $44,590

Total Project Cost:     $78,790

Financial Incentive:   -$38,160

Net Project Cost:       $40,631

Payback                      0.9

What’s the easiest way to see what our savings would be?

Your savings are based on the quantity and type of fixtures you have, plus your hours of operation – or more specifically, how many hours/day your lights are ON. With this information we can quickly calculate your energy savings, maintenance savings, project cost and payback.

Lighting audits are a complimentary service at Nexstar Lighting. There are no commitments, and no costs to get you everything you need to know to make an informed decision. Nexstar’s turnkey services even include the application processing for the Save-ON-Energy submission.

For even faster service, Nexstar provides an online self-auditing form within our web site. See http://www.nexstarlighting.com/requestaquotenow.php

For more complex projects the Save-ON-Energy program even offers an AUDIT FUNDING program, covering up to 50% of the cost to have a professional energy audit done on your building. In this case you are required to hire a 3rd party professional engineer (PEng.), a certified engineering technologist (CET), a certified energy manager or a certified measurement and verification professional, who has at least three years of relevant experience evaluating energy systems in building.

For further details on the Save-ON-Energy program, please see: https://saveonenergy.ca/

Complements of Nexstar Lighting, Customer Services

Contact us by email @ customer-service@nexstarlighting.com

Or, TOLL FREE @ 1-866-291-1266

Let us help you Turn on the Savings!

How can we determine if motion sensors are justified?

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The best way to determine your ROI for motion sensors is to record the activity in the areas/zones where you are considering them. So, how do you go about measuring activity? Easy… professional lighting suppliers can provide you with a small monitoring device that gets installed in the potential control area and measures occupancy patterns. Armed with this data it’s easy to quantify potential energy savings from occupancy sensors.

Some monitoring devices can also record the activity of a building’s lighting – a combination occupancy sensor & light monitoring device.

These devices are generally available at no cost for the monitoring period.

 

T12 Lamps – banned as of June 30, 2012

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TechTalk Banned T12In April 2005, ballast efficacy standards mandated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) went into effect. Within these standards, virtually all T12 lamps will be banned by June 30, 2012. The Canadian standards for fluorescent lamp ballasts are similar to the existing U.S. standards.

This standard officially outlaws the manufacture of magnetic ballasts for standard T12 40-watt and 34-watt, 4-foot fluorescent Rapid Start lamps, 60-watt and 75-watt 8-foot fluorescent lamps, and 110-watt, 8-foot fluorescent High Output lamps used in new fixtures.

The OEM community was the first to feel the impact in 2005, with distributors retaining the right to sell replacement products until 2010. On July 1st, 2010, however, manufacturers were required to terminate production of these products for the replacement market as well.

According to estimates by the Lighting Efficiency Coalition, the nation’s upgrade from magnetic T12 to electronic T12 ballasts alone would reduce annual electricity demand by 25 billion kilowatt hours, avoid the need for 3.3 nuclear power plants, prevent the emission of 17.5 million tons of carbon dioxide into the environment, and save users $2 billion on their energy bills each year.

What’s the technology behind the energy efficient light?

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A fluorescent bulb contains a gas that produces invisible ultraviolet light (UV) when the gas is excited by electricity. The UV light hits the white coating inside the fluorescent bulb and the coating changes it into light you can see. Because fluorescent bulbs don’t use heat to create light, they are far more energy-efficient than regular incandescent bulbs.

Is there anything I can do myself to help reduce energy costs?

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Common Strategies to help you reduce energy costs are:

  • Turn it off – the best solution is to ensure all equipment is only energized when needed. This includes major equipment such as lights, fans and air compressors.
  • Improve Efficiency – lighting is the largest and easiest load to improve in efficiency and can provide a good simple payback. A plan should be in place to ensure only the most efficient equipment is installed when a replacement or new installation is required.
  • Peak Demand Shifting – also referred to as load shifting. Consider whether any equipment that is operating during the one-hour period when the monthly peak demand is set can be used at an alternate time.