Despite significant monthly savings associated with energy efficient lighting, high upfront costs delay many businesses from installing new systems. In the non-profit sector, the challenge can seem insurmountable. But financial solutions can be leveraged by lighting vendors to make upgrades possible – and profitable – to customers. DLL partnered with Linmore LED Labs to provide a church with a complete lighting retrofit.
Background
Linmore LED Labs offers top performance LED lighting solutions to minimize energy consumption and maintenance, elevate sustainability, improve aesthetics, and correct lighting levels. Their client, Valley Baptist Church, was in desperate need of a full lighting retrofit to replace 2,000 indoor fixtures and install 64 site lights in the parking lot of the church. The project would give the church’s interior an updated look, light a previously dark parking lot – and save enough energy to reduce the church’s utility bill by an estimated $9,978 per month.
Challenge
Like so many non-profits, the church was not in a position to cover the lighting project retrofit cost of $325,000. “They wanted to sign up, but just couldn’t make the numbers work,” said Linmore President and CEO Paul Chamberlain. “It was a Catch-22. They needed to realize some of the savings we were telling them this project would provide in order to pay for the project itself.”
Additionally, the price quoted to the church factored in substantial rebates being offered by their local utility. However, those rebates were set to expire and Linmore would be forced to increase the project’s total cost by nearly 10 percent. If they wanted to benefit from the rebates, the church needed to act fast.
“I didn’t know if we were going to be able to make this work for Valley Baptist,” said Chamberlain, “it needed to be done – both for the energy savings and added security to the exterior, but it just didn’t seem feasible considering the cash-flow limitations they were up against and the time frame for the rebates that we were up against.” At that point, Linmore LED Labs reached out to their finance partner, DLL.