Practical advice on commercial lighting from LED retrofits to lighting design.

Multifamily properties are an increasingly popular housing option. Around one in six households in the United States live in an apartment or condo.

It's no wonder why energy costs are so high. You're supplying multiple families who choose their own air conditioning set points and light levels.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) found that if every multifamily property made energy-efficient upgrades, utility costs would decrease by $3.4 billion across the U.S.

Healthcare facilities spend an alarming amount of money. The total tops $8 billion in the U.S. every year.

A big reason for those costs – everything is constantly running. Lights and HVAC need to be on all day, every day. Patient safety and care is a top priority.

There are four ways to immediately reduce those high costs and improve the experience for patients and employees.

If you operate a large facility, you probably keep stock of fluorescent tubes so you can promptly replace any failed bulbs. Often times, we talk to customers who want to use up their existing fluorescent tube stock before they move forward with an LED upgrade.

This had us curious. What's the cost of waiting to switch to LED?

Energy is one of the fastest growing costs in the hotel industry. Think about it: there are now more electronics and perks expected in a hotel room than ever before. Energy Star estimates that hotels spend $2,196 per room every year on energy alone.

In recent years, New York has made big plans to go green. By 2030, the city hopes to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions by 30%.

That’s a lofty goal for a city that has nearly a million buildings. But it turns out, about 22,000 buildings use nearly half of the energy citywide. That makes it a little more manageable, right?

Francine Pitassi, one of Regency's Lighting Specialists, works with customers every day to find cost and energy saving lighting options for their applications. One topic she finds herself addressing often is that of lighting rebates. In this article, Francine helps answer some of the most common questions we receive centered around lighting rebates.

Energy rebates can be a big boost for building improvement projects, like a lighting retrofit. But is the reward even worth the hassle? 

Interest in low voltage, or 12v, lighting has grown in our increasingly energy-conscious customers over the last several years, with the emergence and proliferation of long-life, energy-efficient lighting. 

But to properly understand the full benefits of low voltage lighting, we should start here: low voltage lighting is more of a tactical application than a budgetary or energy-saving one, though there may be moderate gains in these areas in certain instances. 

This is the second in our series of articles meant to take the mystery out of savings and payback calculations for lighting. From designers to engineers to executives, lighting projects are more commonly cross-functional decisions. 

This article focuses on one of the least-covered questions on savings calculations for lighting projects: How can a lighting retrofit save you money on HVAC costs?

Have you ever considered cutting your cable TV subscription? With faster internet speeds and more video streaming services out there — Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, and YouTube, to name a few — it seems like more people are considering changing the channel from traditional cable or satellite TV providers for on-demand, more customizable TV streaming services.

If you’ve considered this, you’ve probably looked at a cable bill and thought, "How can they get away with charging that kind of money?"
If you’ve had this experience, you’ve certainly evaluated the high cost of the status quo.