When it comes to commercial lighting, some people think, “more is better.” After all, you can never have too much light—right?

Lighting in Commercial Spaces

Wrong! Believe it or not, having too much light can be just as much of a problem as not having enough. In fact, most commercial spaces are over-lit, and that costs companies money. That’s a big deal in an economic environment where companies are trying to conserve every dime.

Just how significant can these savings be? When The New York Times Company wanted to create an "energizing work environment" and reduce energy consumption, it chose Lutron light control strategies. With light level tuning, daylight harvesting and occupancy sensing, the company saved over 70% of its lighting energy and over $600,000 in electricity costs each year. The results you get for your customers may not be that dramatic, but they can certainly make a marked improvement.

As important as they are, energy savings are only part of the equation when it comes to the benefits of proper lighting in commercial settings. Though typical lighting is fine for paperwork, it is usually 2 to 3 times brighter than is ideal for computer work. Studies show that proper lighting control can translate to a 5–10% increase in productivity. That can mean a significant impact on a company’s bottom line—and it may be something your commercial customers aren’t thinking about.

So how can you help your customers realize energy savings and increased productivity? Lutron EcoSystem® and Quantum® offer remote controls so individuals are able to adjust the light over their space. RadioTouch® and GRAFIK Eye® QS controls are ideal for meeting rooms and classrooms. Lutron controls allow people to set lighting levels for different tasks, from cube to office to conference room.

Can you ever have too much light? Sure! But you can help your customers make sure they have the right amount of light in their workspaces. It will save them money, make them more productive—and make you look like a hero!

Commercial Lighting Solutions

The businesses that own commercial properties are always looking for ways to improve their bottom line. Whether these companies manage their buildings themselves, or employ a professional property management service, they’re looking for ways to cut costs—and increase productivity.

More and more savvy property managers are looking at energy consumption—and specifically at lighting solutions to accomplish both. And you can play a big role in helping them achieve those goals.

Importance of Efficiency

Some of these property managers may not be aware that in the majority of office buildings, lighting accounts for 39% of that building’s annual electricity use. Usage can actually be higher than that in specialized settings such as healthcare facilities, where it’s 43% and in hotels where the figure jumps to 55%. It’s no wonder that having an energy-efficient workplace is increasingly important to businesses today.

What can you suggest to your clients who manage commercial properties?

Start With Dimming the Lights: A business that dims its office lights can really save measureable amounts of money. Installing a single Lutron dimmer can actually save a business more than $85 each year. And the good news is that these commercial dimmers are designed to last at least 10 years. Not only does adding dimmers improve workspace comfort—it also improves the building owners’ return on investment.

Take It a Step at a Time With Individual Rooms: You can suggest installing single-room systems in heavily trafficked spaces to maximize energy savings and enhance that room's comfort level. You can then add features such as sensors that are integrated with lighting to further reduce operating costs. And you can even suggest a solution for the age-old problem of employees who forget to turn out the lights, by installing occupancy and vacancy sensors that will turn the lights out after periods of non-use—automatically.  

Give Clients the Big Picture: If you have a client who is really serious about energy savings, you may want to suggest a total light management solution for full energy efficiency. Of course it’s a bigger investment, but it produces correspondingly big results. The New York Times cut $600,000 from its annual lighting costs after installing the Lutron Quantum® system. And after installing EcoSystem®, a commercial property in Houston saved $50,000 on its electric lighting bill—and trimmed $16,000 off their bill due to a reduction in air conditioning expenses.

Light control also decreases HVAC energy costs. Shading systems reduce the amount of solar heat gain that enters a space while reducing glare. Shades can also be controlled by Hyperion™ to automatically adjust shades based on the sun’s position throughout the day based on the season and building location and façade.

What’s really great is that when companies reduce uncomfortable hotspots and eliminate glare, they also improve productivity. It’s a win-win proposition!

You can help your commercial property management companies face some big challenges by recommending solution from a wide variety of solutions you have at your disposal.

Why The Right Ballast Matters (and How to Select the Right One)

Talking about the right ballast for a lighting system may not sound very sexy. But if you supply, install, or specify commercial lighting systems, it’s a big deal—especially when it comes to dimming, and saving money.

Educational, institutional, and commercial buildings use predominantly Fluorescent and LED lighting—in part because they meet energy-conscious design criteria such as ASHRAE/IESNA 90.1 standards and LEED® guidelines. The energy savings—and related cost savings—are often extremely important in these types of buildings. And one way to save energy and money is through dimming.

You already know that fluorescent lighting uses much less power than incandescent lighting. In fact, in a typical installation, a 32 W compact fluorescent lamp provides approximately the same light output as a 100 W incandescent lamp. But dimming of a fluorescent lamp makes it even more energy efficient. The same is true of LED light sources, because dimming can extend the already long life of LEDs.

While manual dimming of fluorescent lamps and LEDs saves energy, that’s really just the tip of the iceberg in economy.  By combining additional energy-saving strategies, you can help customers and clients maximize their savings. Here are some additional features you can offer.

 Occupancy/vacancy sensors can eliminate wasted energy by turning off lights in unoccupied spaces. Lutron EcoSystem® ballasts communicate through the EcoSystem digital link and are the only ballasts that can connect directly to wired occupancy/vacancy sensors. Other ballasts and drivers can also utilize wireless or wired occupancy/vacancy sensors with a QS sensor module.

Optimize ballast efficiency with lower standby power with the EcoSystem H-Series that uses less than 1 W of power when the light source is off. You can also take advantage of luminous efficacy.  When you add more lamps per ballast, the required startup power is diffused over multiple lamps, conserving energy.

Know your space. You can achieve the greatest energy savings by determining the right number of lumens that are required for a specific space. That means you don’t over-light and area and waste energy. The ballast factor is the percentage of light output for a given lamp-ballast combination. By reducing the ballast factor, it is possible to achieve greater energy savings, meet lumen/foot2 specifications and even qualify for the ighest levels of LEED. Custom ballast factors are available for: EcoSystem H-Series, Hi-lume® 3D, EcoSystem and EcoSystem compact.

So how do you select the right ballast? That, of course, depends on your specific need. Click to view the ballast select tool to find your perfect ballast!

It’s no secret that businesses are looking to maximize resources at every turn. That means they’ll be looking to you for suggestions on how to use lighting solutions to improve comfort, increase productivity, and save energy.

Interestingly, there are studies that show when employees are given personal light control they often prefer to dim the lights. What’s great about that is that it increases energy savings, and enhances productivity. That’s why Lutron manual controls (including wall stations and personal remotes) are a great solution: the allow building occupants to control their lights.

Sometimes, however, there are things that a business or commercial property needs to automate. Lutron has businesses covered there as well, with a wide range of automated controls that include occupancy/vacancy sensors that can automatically turn lights on when a space becomes occupied or vacancy sensors can dim or turn off lights when spaces are unoccupied. Reliable automated time clocks come with a highly desirable scheduling feature that adjusts lights or shades at certain times of the day or in relation to sunrise and sunset.

You can also help your control how daylight affects rooms by offering daylight sensors that automatically adjust lighting levels based on the amount of daylight in a specific room.  You can give them control with automated shades to control heat gain and glare. And Lutron daylight sensors will enhance their energy savings by automatically adjusting the amount of light based on how much daylight is present.

With Single Room solutions from Lutron, you can help your commercial clients take control of their lighting needs—and their energy use.

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