Government Rebates For Led Lights

By Dennis Jarvis

In most of our cost savings examples shown on this site, we look strictly at wattage and bulb replacement savings because that’s where the meat is and we want to be conservative when comparing options. Savings associated with switching to LED lights do not need to be sold…they sell themselves and our job is to present the information clearly and get out of the way. Smart people will see the opportunity right away. There is one piece however that we need to mention even it is not included in our cost estimates. Government rebates and tax treatment. Once you have changed over your lighting to high efficiency LED lights, it’s time to look at what government is doing to reward you for an already rewarding choice.

The first place to go is dsireusa.org. You can find a collection of government rebates across Federal, State, and Local levels. We linked directly to the “Search” feature since it’s the best way to narrow the rebates available to you. Rebates are typically administered through the local utility which makes sense since power originates there. There are three main classifications of rebates to look for.

Rebate per KWH. This is a measure of electricity usage and it breaks down into a 1000 watts of energy used for 1 hour. This is about as direct you can get. The government body will rebate back to you a certain amount of money (such as 6 cents) usually for KWH’s saved. Since LED lights can drop wattage consumption and therefore KWH by 90%+, savings can be significant. This is a rebate on the net difference in total energy usage that a switch to LED lights saves. It’s also the gift that may keep on giving as it’s not related to fixed purchase cost but ongoing energy usage. One 60 watt bulb used 10 hours a day for 365 days a year would consume 219 KWH in a year. Our 3 watt LED replacement would consume 10 KWH in a year with the same usage. The rebate on the difference with a 6 cent value would $12.48 alone. That’s only one bulb and this is in addition to energy and replacement savings. That’s the first rebate to look at in your State.

Rebate per lamp. This is a rebate usually of a fixed dollar amount per high efficiency LED light purchased. It can run from $1 to $20 for standard commercial and residential lights. This rebate is a one time amount at time of purchase but still significantly offsets the higher costs of LED lights so can recoup the savings more quickly with energy savings and less replacement costs.

Rebate per square foot. This generally applies to commercial LED light installations but it’s impressive. You may be looking at 60 cents per square foot rebate for new installs as in California. That’s sizeable. Not to belittle anyone’s math but for a 10,000 sq ft building with full LED switchover, that’s $6K rebate on top of KWH and per lamp bulbs.

Finally, there can be accelerated depreciation for LED lights which normally have a 5 year schedule.

About the Author: Dennis Jarvis writes extensively about

LED lighting and LED light bulbs

for industrial, office, commercial, grow lights, and residential lighting and how they can save energy costs and money.

Source:

isnare.com

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