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

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

What products should you retrofit to LED first? 

Our lighting experts get that question all the time. Fortunately, there’s a pretty simple answer.

If you have any applications in your building that still have incandescent or halogen lighting, start there first. Why?

The retrofit from incandescent or halogen to LED gives you the biggest energy savings and almost always the fastest return on investment. We all want to make our money back quickly on investments, right? If you’re using linear or compact fluorescent lighting anywhere in your building, your lighting is already fairly efficient, especially when compared with incandescent or halogen lighting. 

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.

March Madness is underway. We've got an office pool going and my bracket is a mad, blazing disaster.

Evidently, I don't know much about college basketball. I do know this, though: all of the lighting nerds tuning into the tournament should keep an eye on the performance of Eaton's Ephesus LED lighting system, which was on display over the weekend at some of the tournament's regional venues, like KeyBank Center in Buffalo, Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, BOK Center in Tulsa, and will light the Final Four next month at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.

This is the fourth article in our series exploring savings and payback calculations for lighting retrofits. The complexity of lighting payback calculations can make your head spin and make you wonder what applies to you and what doesn't.

This article focuses on the labor savings that you gain when you switch to long-life lighting products, like LED.

BriteSwitch helps businesses across the United States and Canada to pinpoint and apply for utility rebates and tax incentive programs which will help them to save money. Regency has worked with BriteSwitch to help customers through the oft-difficult and tedious application process for such programs and lighting rebates.

Recently, we've seen a swell in the number of building improvement projects taking place from a number of financially-savvy companies looking for tax write-off opportunities. And part of that probably has to do with a couple of bills passed near the end of the first session of the 114th U.S. Congress.

We wrote about these developments at the time but, as a review, here’s what the two bills do:

You've heard the buzz about lighting as a service but you're not sure if it's actually worthwhile or if you'll end up paying more in the end. You're not alone.

Whether you're a Chief Engineer, Director of Maintenance, or Energy Manager, you're probably responsible for finding the most energy efficient and cost saving solutions for your company. But oftentimes with LaaS, there seems to be a lack of clarity around what actually goes into pricing. We're here to shed some light on the topic to help you make the best decision for your business.

Parking areas are one place where quick payback on an LED retrofit is almost guaranteed. The applications tend to be difficult to access, typically requiring special equipment like a lift or even closure, making coordination a total headache. And the cost of keeping a parking area lit all night with the correct amount of light is nothing to sneeze at, especially this time of year, when daylight is minimal.