Over the next several years, the more efficient 34-watt T8 fluorescent bulb on the left is expected to replace the standard 40-watt T12 bulb and its magnetic ballast.
Either you or someone you know probably works in an office building under a sea of fluorescent lights. Chances are, however, that your boss doesn’t know those old fluorescent fixtures in the office probably use outdated technology and his business is currently losing hundreds or thousands of dollars in electricity each year.
Your boss also probably doesn’t know that there are major tax incentives and energy savings available for businesses that switch all of their fluorescent lights over to a new federally mandated lighting requirement.
Tell him not to feel too daft, though. Not very many people outside the lighting industry know too much about the Federal rules, the tax incentives or the new technology, according to industry leaders.
The federal problem comes down to the basics of your office’s lighting source. In those fluorescent light fixtures above your head, there are two main parts – the bulbs and the ballast. The ballast is the device used for starting and regulating the fluorescent bulbs and for more than 50 years they have used magnetic technology.
In 2000, the U.S. Department of Energy revised its Federal Fluorescent Lamp Ballast Energy Conservation Standards. To save the country billions of dollars in wasted energy over the next 25 years, the DOE mandated that lighting manufacturers could no longer produce magnetic ballasts and began to push the use of electronic ballasts and smaller, more efficient bulbs. According to estimates released in the 2000 ruling, the manufacturing changes would save American businesses and industry between $1.42 billion and $2.60 billion by 2030.
While the federal manufacturing mandate probably didn’t have a major impact on most businesses in 2000, local businesses might want to begin taking notice now, said Patty Robinson, president of CS-Conserve & Save Lighting in Richmond.
While your office most likely uses magnetic ballasts and 40-watt T12 fluorescent bulbs, which are an inch-and-a-half in diameter, Robinson said the new system being pushed by the government requires cooler-running electronic ballasts and one-inch wide 34-watt T8 bulbs.
According to the federal manufacturing mandate, original equipment manufacturers are prohibited from selling lighting fixtures containing magnetic ballasts after this April and replacement ballasts will be banned in 2010. That might not mean much now, but Robinson said it will be quite hard to find replacement 40-watt T12 bulbs or magnetic ballasts in a few years and businesses will be forced to retrofit their lighting anyway.
Robinson said while the four-foot T12 bulbs have been the standard since they came out in the 1930s, the lighting industry basically came out with a better light bulb the T8.
“When they built the better light bulb, they did a bunch of things better,” she said. “They cut the glare in half, they made it 20 percent brighter and the color renderings are better.”
Besides being brighter and emitting better light, Robinson said the new bulb and ballast system can save businesses a lot of money in the long run.
“You can save somewhere around a third of your electric bill by switching,” she said. “And there will come a point where you can’t get the (old technology) anymore so you are really not going to have an option.”
According to Robinson’s figures, lighting accounts for 62 percent of the billable electric use in this country. By switching to the new fluorescent technology, she said businesses could possibly see their bills get cut in half.
“So you are going to save half of 62 percent of the energy consumption in this country,” she said. “That is a lot of fuel, oil and coal.”
Besides saving on energy costs, businesses can also cut their taxes by switching to the T8 system, said Harry Misuriello, director of buildings and utility programs for Alliance to Save Energy, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit energy efficiently promotion group. Misuriello said while the requirements for the tax credit are pretty stringent, businesses that qualify can get up to 60 cents per square foot just for switching to the new technology but there are certain requirements.
“If you can beat the lighting per square foot basis and if you can get a 25 to 40 percent reduction (in lighting power density), you can get a prorated tax deduction of 30 to 60 cents per square foot under the Interim Rules for Lighting Systems and that is pretty significant,” he said.
Misuriello said the incentives are focused mainly for tax-paying private businesses but federal, state or local governments can assign the value of their retrofit tax credit to the designer of their projects.
According to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the piece of legislation that provides for the tax incentives, the deductions only apply to buildings or systems placed in service between Jan. 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2007.
Besides general energy savings and the tax deduction, Misuriello said air conditioning savings should also be taken into consideration if a business is considering switching to the T8 system. Due to the high temperatures emitted by magnetic ballasts, he said the rule of thumb among energy analysts is that there is a 10 percent reduction in cooling energies after switching to the cooler running electronic ballasts.
Between the energy savings and the available tax deductions, it might seem like every business in town would be scrambling to change out their fluorescents but Misuriello said that hasn’t been the case.
“We are trying to promote it,” he said. “The awareness is probably pretty decent among the service providers and the trade associations but I don’t think it is out that much in the general populace.”
CS Lighting’s Robinson agrees that widespread information hasn’t been that great but added that it is beginning to spread. She said over the past few years it was pretty hard to find anything about the manufacturing changes or the tax credits but in the last few months, several manufacturers have been spreading the word.
“I don’t think the people know that this is happening,” she said. “It is a government mandate but I’d say that half of the people calling me to do a retrofit don’t know that there is a tax rebate. They don’t really know about it because there isn’t really much being said about it.”