What To Know About Lighting Rebates and Incentives

When thinking about an LED lighting retrofit, one of the first items that come to mind is the cost. What is the price of the retrofit for your organization? Lighting retrofit expenses vary wildly depending on the size and scope of the project. However, lighting rebate programs can be helpful in making the project viable for your organization. The number of available lighting rebates has changed over the years however when properly utilized these rebates can positively affect the ROI for your organization. While each incentive and rebate program is different, there are a few commonalities that you will find in each one, such as:

• Lighting fixtures must be DLC listed
• Lamps are ENERGY STAR certified or DLC Listed.
• Inspection from a utility company program manager is usually required for performance-based rebates.
• Pre-approval is generally required for custom and prescriptive programs.
• Money available for the programs is finite, often on a first come first serve basis.
• LED product eligibility can change quickly.

Utility organizations offer three different types of rebates, below we go through each one in more detail.

Prescriptive lighting rebate programs are not designed to be claimed instantly. The incentives are paid out based on the parameters relating to the item sold. For instance, the utility company could offer an incentive for each DLC listed fixture that is installed in your facility. The great thing about this rebate is that has wider availability, it is very explicit, straightforward and easy to apply for. In addition to the fixture incentives, some prescriptive lighting programs will offer labor incentives as well to the recipients. When taken in concert these rebates can really save your organization a lot of money, boosting the ROI of the project.

Custom lighting rebate programs offer incentives for projects which do not meet the requirements of the existing instant or prescriptive rebate programs. For instance, the local utility company could offer a $0.15 incentive per kWh of annual energy consumption reduced. The positive thing about these custom lighting rebates is that they offer more profitable incentives on the same applications. The downside is that there is typically a lot of complexities to sort through to get to those larger incentives for your project.

Point of sale rebates are more “consumer-facing” rebates. Meaning that you would typically see these for products that you buy for your home at a big-box retailer like Walmart or Target. In this scenario, your local utility company could offer a $5 rebate incentive on a lamp that usually costs $15. The store would charge you for the net-of-rebate price, in this case, $10. These types of rebates are not typically seen for large commercial and industrial projects.

In conclusion, we can see that there are multiple types of rebates and incentives that are available for LED Lighting projects. Finding the right rebate for your project is critical to ensuring a proper return on investment. To learn more about what an LED lighting project might look like for your organization please reach out to us here at Action Services Group. We look forward to hearing from you. For more information on Lighting, LED products, and retrofits for your organization contact Action Services Group by calling 610-558-9773, email [email protected], or schedule a call.