A lighting retrofit is the practice of replacing existing lighting systems with more energy-efficient parts. The practice of parts replacement uses a significantly less amount of energy every month. The value is realized in the next few month's energy bills. Eventually, this change will not only pay for the new equipment, but eventually provide a return on your investment.
Understanding energy consumption is vital to this decision. Utilities bill their customers in a variety of ways. They will charge you based upon use of energy, a charge for demand, a power factor charge, fuel adjustment charges, and other unmentionables.This process will focus on energy reduction. This is vital to everyone. The past few years the power grid in the United States struggle's to provide electrical power to all it's customers.
A formula for energy consumption is kilowatt-hours equals input kilowatt-hours multiplied by time. You can calculate this from your monthly utility bill times projected hourly use. Reducing energy consumption can be achieved by reduction of input wattage or reduce hours of use. Input wattage can be reduced. Replace your lamps and tar ballasts with electronic ballasts and energy-efficient light bulbs. You also can reduce hours of operation by using lighting controls and other energy-saving efforts.
Lets look at a model to give an idea of the savings. One system uses 175 input watts multiplied by 3,000 hours a year. The total comes to 525 kilowatt-hours. Divide the kilowatt-hours by $0.10 cost for each kilowatt-hours. This comes to a $5,250.00 bill. Our second model uses 100 input watts multiplied by the same 3,000 hours of use.The utility cost would be $3,000.00. This is a savings of $2,250.00 or about a 42.5% savings. Now obviously in residential settings, lighting may not use half of the kilowatt-hours every month. Even if this practice cuts your total bill by 25% a month, the retrofit pays for itself in 24 months.
Green energy is a dominating force in our universe. Lighting retrofits are the quickest way to make your own personal contribution. The bottom line is use of energy. The less energy we use, the longer we delay global warming. Just a side note, T-12 lightbulbs and ballast are becoming more expensive. The reason for this is because the industry is phasing them out. In a few years, you will not be able to purchase these products anymore. Don't quit without implementing your lighting retrofit!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=George_Argo
