Lighting rebate trends: Incentives for controls stay strong

Princeton, N.J. -- This year 2015 is shaping up to be another great year for rebates and incentives in North America, particularly when it comes to controls, according to a report BriteSwitch, which helps large national companies take advantage of rebate programs. Currently, 72% of the country is covered by an active commercial lighting rebate program.



For the fifth year in a row, the rebates for lighting controls continue to remain at fairly high levels compared to their costs, BriteSwitch found. Remote mounted occupancy sensors have an average rebate of $32.68 and fixture mounted sensor rebates average $30.30. The relatively high rebate amounts (versus the cost), make them an easy add on to any energy efficiency project.



In other findings by BriteSwitch:



• There has been a larger than expected drop in the rebates for LED replacement lamps such as PARs, MRs, A-lamps and decorative lamps. While the average rebate for replacement LED lamps was $11.12 in 2014, this year it dropped 32% to $7.51. The change comes as rebate programs try to adjust their offerings to match the price decreases of many LED lamps. An overwhelming majority of rebate programs still require lamps to be on the most current Energy Star list in order to qualify for any rebates.



• More and more replacement LED T8 tubes are coming into the market and they are re quickly gaining acceptance with rebate programs across the country. In fact, the number of programs offering prescriptive rebates for LED tube replacements tripled since last year. At an average prescriptive rebate of $8.29 per lamp, rebates can help significantly improve the financials.