Is the Glass Half Full for your Lighting Project?

Are you a glass half full or half empty kind of person?

This isn’t a philosophical question about your outlook on life, but rather a question about how you see and approach potential lighting and controls projects.

The Half Empty Approach

The energy services industry is largely geared toward a “glass half empty” approach. Actions focus on the negative impacts that come with delayed upgrades. This is sometimes referred to as the “cost of waiting.”

They include increasing energy costs that are pronounced due to old and inefficient technology, the sporadic and inconvenient replacement of failing lamps along with the untimely and sometimes unexpected service call to address the issue. The frequency of the calls increase, and the hidden costs of added visits can easily go unnoticed, costing your organization thousands of additional dollars in maintenance each year.

Yet you flick the switch and the lights still go on. They may be dimmer and service calls are on the rise, but the decline is gradual. You deal with the half empty lighting condition for your facility with a half empty sense of the value in making real change.

When you do finally tire of the situation, the unpleasant and challenging list of tasks ahead seem to mount endlessly.

Unpleasant because you see a high risk project and a large capital expense ahead.

Challenging because it is a big project with a lot of work to be done. Lots of people will be impacted, lots of decisions and choices need to be made, and you are feeling like it needs to be done quickly.

That said, what will the priority be? Lowest cost? Best payback? Total cost of ownership?

How does your budget compare to your needs? How will you help the organization make the best choices?

…the pencil falls from your hand, and frustrated with the list of questions on the piece of paper you sweep it up, crumple it up and fling it…missing the basket…kind of like missing the opportunity that sits in front of you.

The Half Full Approach

The half full approach sees the potential value in the improved lighting throughout the facility, benefiting the staff or customers who are in your facility every day.

The half full approach sees the potential benefit of partnering with someone who can deliver effective solutions quickly, adding significant energy savings to your bottom line.

The half full approach sees that some new technologies can provide outstanding value to the organization…above and beyond great lighting.

Suddenly there is a spring in your step. You aren’t looking at that old lighting and shaking your fist at every outage in the ceiling. You’re looking at each fixture and calculating the value you are about to realize in upgrading each one.

EMC takes a half full approach to lighting conversions. Not just because we are in the business of upgrading lighting systems, but because we actually enjoy the creative process of delivering valuable solutions, and doing so quickly so that additional value can be realized.

EMC’s EnergyMAXX Tool helps our customers and prospects see some of the potential options and anticipated value in upgraded systems.

Once we are clear on priorities and find a solution that can work, we put in motion the people, communication tools and materials to make it happen as quickly as possible, because we know that every day that passes without that conversion is a day of lost energy savings that can never be recovered.

If you aren’t sure where to start, what the options might be for your facilities or what the value of a conversion could mean to your organization, reach out to an EMC representative to schedule some time to review your needs through the EnergyMAXX Tool.

You pick the priority, you tell us about your facility and what your lighting objectives are, and EnergyMAXX can do the rest.

Your glass, and lighting project outlook, will be looking more than half full before you know it.

John Loheit is EMC's Director of Market Development. In this role he leverages his extensive experience with national utilities, EMC customers, partners and energy efficiency markets more broadly to research and support strategic initiatives. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in communications from Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN.