Sylvania Partners with ESCOs to Pursue Energy-Efficient Lighting Upgrades

Citing a growing corporate consensus about the financial benefits of energy efficiency, Osram Sylvania, Danvers, Mass., has launched an alliance with energy service companies (ESCOs)
June 11, 2009
2 min read

Citing a growing corporate consensus about the financial benefits of energy efficiency, Osram Sylvania, Danvers, Mass., has launched an alliance with energy service companies (ESCOs) and electrical distributors nationwide to pursue energy-efficient lighting upgrades in commercial and institutional facilities.

Sixty ESCOs have signed on for Sylvania’s Energy Solutions Network since its inception last fall. The program focuses on small to mid-sized ESCOs, offering them preferred benefits including a dedicated Sylvania ESCO management team, field sales, application engineering and training options as well as marketing programs to support development of energy-efficient lighting upgrade projects.

“Sylvania has long been recognized for its commitment to optimizing our country’s electrical infrastructure and energizing the bottom line of America’s businesses and institutions by upgrading the energy efficiency of facility lighting,” said Mark Corcoran, vice president of industrial commercial lighting.

According to the National Association of Energy Service Companies (NAESCO), an ESCO develops, installs, arranges financing and manages available utility financial incentives for energy efficiency projects to reduce a facility’s energy and maintenance costs. ESCOs can monitor and verify a completed project’s reduced energy use and assume performance risk — assuring the project will achieve its projected energy savings for a seven- to 10-year period.

“The Energy Solutions Network is an energy-efficient marketing, project development and installation initiative focused on delivering reduced energy use and costs to building owners nationwide,” said Bruce Ryman, national ESCO manager at Sylvania. “The U.S. EPA estimates an energy-efficient lighting upgrade can cut a building’s annual lighting energy costs in half, typically a savings of about 50 cents per square foot. Upgrades deliver a two- to three-year payback, a 30 percent to 50 percent return on investment and positive cash flow that drops directly to the bottom line.”

As evidence that lighting upgrades and other green building technologies have moved solidly into the economic mainstream, Ryman noted that a recent study conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction Research & Analytics for Siemens Building Technologies found over half of Fortune 500 CEOs and CFOs either strongly agree or agree that energy-efficient building technologies lower operating costs.