American Made LED Tube meets DLC Listing for LED Rebates

GREENandSAVE Staff
Posted on Monday 15th April 2013

GREEN Energy Reduction is about more than the three classic Rs of the GREEN Economy: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. There is a key fourth “R”: REBATES. Simply, LED rebates help drive ROI, especially for lighting in areas of the U.S. that have lower than average cost per kWh.

A leading U.S. LED tube manufacturer, Independence LED (www.IndependenceLED.com) announced last week that the DesignLights Consortium (DLC) approved its groundbreaking, energy-efficient four-foot 12-Watt LED Tubes for retrofitting the common 2’ x 4’ fluorescent ceiling fixtures. This is a key driver for LED Rebates, because the DLC Lighting approval rounds out the company’s triple play: American-made, lowest energy consumption and now rebate ready. Some utilities offer up to 50% in LED rebates, making this the proverbial LED Tube Game Changer.

Typical drop ceiling fixtures, for offices, schools or other types of buildings, have three or four 4’ fluorescent tubes that each use between 40 watts and 32 watts. The energy efficient LED tubes only use 12 watts each. The LED tube savings is over 60% and in some cases it is even more.

The DesignLight Consortium Qualified Products List ("QPL") is for high-quality, high-performing commercial LED Tube and other LED lighting products. Each of the products listed on the QPL have met the DLC's minimum performance and other requirements. DesignLights Consortium anticipates updating their online Qualified Products List of LED fixture retrofits every two weeks.

The first Independence LED submission for the DLC LED retrofit was within the overall DLC lighting category and it included all three color temperatures for the 4' 12 Watt LED tubes. The solution retrofits fluorescent tubes in 2' x 4' troffers that are such common fixtures across the U.S. and around the world. This retrofit configuration is based on a set of four tubes for the common fixtures.

Buyers and Distributors ask about DLC Lights relative to the Qualified Products List, and DLC LED tubes are increasingly high in demand within the overall category of DLC LED listed products. LED rebates increasingly reduce the payback time that is the engine of the energy reduction marketplace across the category of DLC Lighting. DLC lighting lists for the LED rebates in commercial lighting are key are a key criteria for many U.S. utility companies.

DLC focuses on the net output of usable light from a fixture (efficacy).

Fixtures such as acrylic prismatic or parabolic impact the output of light in different ways. Overall, fixtures reduce the amount of output from either a fluorescent or LED tube so the net lumens per watt is lower than the output per tube in isolation.

For Independence LED, third party testing on typical 12 Cell Parabolic (2’ X 4’) fixtures, such as the ones used for DLC lighting reviews for the DLC LED category, results in an efficacy of 83% to 88%. In short, 12% to 17% of the light is lost through the fixture. The data sets average to a fixture efficacy of 85%.

By contrast, fluorescent tubes typically only have a fixture efficacy of 65% given that about a third of the light is wasted going up into the fixture vs, toward the floor.

The first Independence LED submission for the DLC LED within the DLC lighting category included all three color temperatures for the 4' 12 Watt LED tubes, to retrofit fluorescent tubes in 2' x 4' troffers that are such common fixtures across the U.S. and around the world. More on DLC Lighting from American Manufacturer

MORE on LED REBATES: To find the utility companies that offer the best rebates, go to one of the best and most accurate resource for Energy rebates and incentives: The Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency http://www.dsireusa.org/. It is a comprehensive list of rebates and programs by federal, state and utility companies that help buyers determine whether projects qualify for rebates and incentives. The resource is also excellent for energy professionals and lighting distributors to cross check against the DLC lighting lists. The DLC LED listing provides the approval criteria but DSIRE provides visibility into the Green Energy LED Rebate funding.

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