Just about every business owner is constantly asking themselves two questions – “How can I be more efficient?” and “How can I reduce my overhead?”. If your property is still using a dated halogen or fluorescent lighting system, you may be able to kill two birds with one stone by upgrading your lighting system.
The best way to know whether it’s time to upgrade your lighting, what your upgrade options are, and how much you could save is to conduct a lighting audit. At Suncoast Power, we have conducted lighting audits for retail, commercial, and industrial properties of every size. Our team can handle everything from your initial audit to any necessary upgrades or retrofits. Call us today to speak to a member of our team about your property.
"*" indicates required fields
A lighting audit is a detailed analysis conducted on your building’s current lighting systems that identifies ways to improve efficiency and reduce energy usage. Our comprehensive lighting audit is ideal for commercial, retail, and industrial properties searching for ways to lower energy costs.
Initial Project Consultation
We’ll get information about your property, current lighting fixtures, lighting systems, and other electrical systems.
Conduct Visual Inspections
A lighting audit starts with a visual inspection of your interior and exterior lighting systems and lighting fixtures.
Perform Electrical Testing
Once we’ve finished the visual inspection, we test electrical currents, insulation, and power usage.
Recommendations & Upgrades
Once complete, we will suggest potential energy-saving lighting upgrades and lighting retrofit options for your property.
According to The Department of Energy, more than 38% of a business’s electric costs are related to lighting. Depending on your current lighting and usage, you could save up to 50% on your monthly energy bill by improving the efficiency of your lighting system. Our lighting audit is a detailed room-by-room analysis of your property that will uncover any opportunities for you to save. Our audit covers:
Modern businesses need modern lighting solutions to succeed. Lighting audits and their resulting improvements provide your building with many long-term benefits beyond decreased energy bills.
Buildings built decades ago may still have poor electrical systems that can’t compete with the modern demands of your property. Outdated lighting components waste energy and can become fire hazards. Updating your fixtures will save your building money, boost the property’s overall safety, and provide a better experience for all occupants.
Older fluorescent and halide bulbs are made of mercury, a toxic chemical, requiring specialized disposal protocols. Energy-efficient solutions, like LED lights, require less power and aren’t made with mercury, making them an energy-conscious and environmentally-friendly option
Today’s smart lighting solutions come with a wide range of enhanced controls and automation options. There are basic features like scheduling when lights turn on and off and more complex features like automatically adjusting the light temperature based on the time of day.
One of the biggest benefits of a lighting upgrade are the savings you’ll see on your energy bill. When you upgrade to LED lighting, not only will your lights use considerably less energy, but they will last about 50 times longer than a conventional light bulb.
A room’s lighting can significantly impact a person’s mood, productivity level, and well-being. LED lights create a pleasant, cool light that can adjusted for things like color temperatures, brightness levels, and more to create different ambiances.
Upgrading to LED lighting will improve efficiency across the board. Not only will your energy costs drop, but your employees will also be happier and more productive. With lower overhead and higher productivity, you’ll have more to reinvest into your business.
Our lighting audit will analyze all of your interior and exterior lighting systems. We perform a number of calculations on your energy usage to find opportunities to improve lighting efficiency.
Every building type has different lighting requirements. For example, an art showroom may require more spotlights, whereas a hospital likely needs consistent overhead lighting. We first assess your location type to contextualize our following steps.
We take note of windows, skylights, or other special requirements and considerations at this time. At this point, if you require certain spaces to have specific lights, letting us know early can allow us to craft our plan accordingly.
Before conducting the lighting retrofit or improvement project, we must understand what fixtures and lights your building already uses. For each one, we examine a few key points:
To understand your building’s usage requirements, we must determine the annual burn hours. Annual burn hours refer to the total combined time your fixtures operate per year. To find this figure, we multiply the hours each fixture burns daily by the days per week and the weeks per year.
Kilowatts are measurement units for energy that help us understand how much power your building needs. To determine how many Kilowatts your fixtures use, we must find the Kilowatt (kW) rate.
The kW rate equation involves multiplying your number of fixtures by each fixture’s input Kilowatts. Next, we divide this figure by 1,000 to find your fixtures’ average kW rate.
Aside from how many Kilowatts your fixtures burn, we also need to understand your average hourly Kilowatt burn rate. The amount of power you use per hour directly impacts your energy bills.
To find the Kilowatt-per-hour (kWh) rate, we need three of your most recent power bills. To determine the rate, we add the total spending and divide this figure by the total burn hours (amount of usage across all three bills).
The final step of our lighting audit involves determining your existing annual energy expense. This number reflects your building’s current yearly power bills in total. To find this number, we multiply your annual burn hours by your kW rate by your kWh rate.
The results help us understand how much we can improve your building with LED upgrades and other advancements. For every lighting recommendation we make, we’ll also provide figures proving how your bills will decrease.
The equations and steps above may sound complex, but our Suncoast team has decades of experience that make the process hassle-free. Our team handles the complicated math, so you can focus on pressing business manners.
