Green Light

Still figuring out how to sell lighting control upgrades? Try appealing to home buyers' environmental awareness.

Source: DIGITAL HOME MAGAZINE
Publication date: 2007-09-01

By Evamarie Socha

Lighting control has long been one of many systems that Oldsmar, Fla.–based S&S Electric installs for its customers. But in the last several months, vice president Shawn Smith has seen the technology in a new light—specifically, a green one.

“We've heard people talk about green options,” says Smith. “I get a call about it once a week. They're asking, ‘How do we get a green home?'”

Typically, says Smith, lighting control is sold to home buyers as a convenience. But as environmental consciousness gains momentum, those same buyers are seeking to be as Earth-friendly as they can, and lighting control is more marketable than ever. “Buyers ask, ‘What can we do to make our homes green?' They're not really aware that lighting control is an option.”

In fact, when it comes to marketing and selling energy-efficient, digital home technology, lighting control is a reasonable place to start. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program:

• Consumption for all lighting in the United States is estimated to be about 22 percent of total electricity generated.
• Lighting accounts for one-fifth of national electricity consumption.
• It costs approximately $58 billion a year to light homes, offices, streets, and factories.
• Twenty-five percent of a home's electric bill is for lighting.

When you throw in rising energy costs and the influence of California's Title 24 legislation (see “Get to Know Title 24, ” page 28), lighting control—the ability for new homeowners to automatically manage their lights—becomes an answer to various consumption questions.

“Lighting control will become an economic imperative, especially with the mandates of Title 24,” says Barry Haaser, senior director for the LonWorks Infrastructure Business at Echelon Corp., a San Jose, Calif.–based home automation company. “It's not yet an all-or-nothing proposition, but it's coming at us fast and furious.”

Lighting control has always been something of a “green-enabling” technology. It's just that most home buyers haven't always thought of it that way. Nor has it been sold to them with that emphasis.

“We've all been doing smart homes for 15 years now, and all of a sudden this green thing has caught on,” says Dan Fulmer, president of FulTech Solutions, a high-end home automation installer in Jacksonville, Fla. (www.fultechsolutions.com). He acknowledges that no single home automation technology is the end-all-be-all, “But if you control the AC and your drapes, blinds, and lights, you're pretty green,” he says.

Fulmer works with builders on homes that range from $1 million to $2 million and that run anywhere from 5,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet. Lighting control and automation are par for the course in such homes, where an electric bill can average $500 to $600 per month, he says.

People who buy these homes know they are going to use more energy, but lighting control lets them program scenes, such as dimmer lights in the dining room, brighter lights in the living room, and lights off upstairs when entertaining. With such control, they enhance their homes and, potentially, use less energy. “You can go green, and it has a better effect,” says Fulmer. “The homeowner gets what they want, and it's going to save money. It's a deal closer.”

But at what price does that kind of control come? Haaser says there are two words many people still associate with lighting control: expensive and complicated.

“From an average consumer standpoint, there is a perception that ‘It's expensive, I have to have someone install in, I don't really understand it,'” he says. But that's not necessarily the case these days, and helping home buyers shed that notion will help sell them on such systems.

“The interesting thing is most people don't understand or appreciate [lighting control] until they have it, then they can't live without it,” Haaser says. “It adds a level of security and convenience.”

Still, builders and installers should be ready to sell lighting control not just as a cost-saver. The real payoff for buyers may be the feeling of doing what's right. “Consumers will make a trade-off,” says Haaser. “What is the emotional value of being eco-friendly?”

John Taylor, senior product manager of the Miro product line for Watt Stopper/Legrand (www.wattstopper.com), says he's noticed a change in thinking. “Previously, lighting control had to deliver payback in a reasonable time,” he says. Buyers wanted to see immediate savings on their electricity bill right installing a system. “Now all the emphasis is on the climate and people's awareness. People just want to do the right thing.”

“It's kind of like when you buy a hybrid car,” Taylor says. “If you analyzed it, payback might not be so good. But it doesn't have to have a strict break-even point; you know you're doing something good for the environment.”

Looking ahead, the green advantages of lighting control could provide an entry to selling a variety of other smart home features, from communicating thermostats to networked appliances.

IN CONTROL: By better managing their lights, home buyers can live more energy-efficiently.

“I was stuck on a plane reading SkyMall magazine and I started thinking about all the products in there that were green,” says Smith. Soon after, S&S Electric began assessing the green value of all its offerings and preparing a sales manual of everything green it can install for builders (www.ss-electric.com).

FulTech is doing the same thing, says Fulmer. “We're promoting it more now than in the past, though we've had it in our brochures for years,” he says. “Green is catching on and people want to feel good about what they've done.”

Says Jay McLellan, president and CEO of Home Automation Inc. (www.homeauto.com), “People are into elegant items that give their home uniqueness and personalization. Lighting control allows them to do that. And sometimes in a market that is cooling down, those little extras help people decide on a home that has been thoughtfully engineered.”

<i>Evamarie Socha is managing editor of Hanley Wood's</i> PROSALES <i>and</i> TOOLS OF THE TRADE <i>magazines.</i>

The 800-pound gorilla of energy codes can be heard across the country.

California's Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings, also known as Title 24, is a code to decrease energy consumption in the state, and it's rippling across the home building industry. Although it's a California law, many states are taking notice.

The current standards were updated in 2005, and the latest version will be out in late 2009. Understanding the main points of Title 24, as it pertains to residential lighting, is critical for California builders; elsewhere it's an indicator or where things are going.

“Title 24 is here to stay,” says Shawn Smith of S&S Electric in Oldsmar, Fla. “Florida is about as far away from California as you can get, but there is talk about it here. We may not get it legislatively, but people will adapt it through rules and guidelines.”

Under Title 24, all new and remodeled homes must have energy-efficient lighting and controls. Depending on the room, these include dimmers, occupancy sensors, and high-efficacy lights. Sensors have to be Title 24-compliant and enable lights to be turned on manually, but turned off automatically within 30 minutes. High-efficacy lights, as defined by Title 24, include fluorescent, compact fluorescent (CFL), or high-intensity discharge (HID) bulbs. They also have to conform to other specifications, such as a rating of 13 watts or greater.

There are exceptions, particularly in kitchens, if the lights are on a separate circuit. And pool lighting, for instance, doesn't have to conform to high-efficacy rules. Read more at www.energy.ca.gov/title24.