Electro-Matic Visual Blog

Energy costs are second highest cost in schools' budgets, following personnel costs. With energy costs taking up such a large portion of a school’s budget, it is sensible to upgrade to more energy efficient practices and products. That’s easier said than done, though—where will the funding come from to support these energy efficient upgrades for schools? Despite the long-term savings, and higher quality of school that would result from energy efficient upgrades, it’s challenging for these projects to be approved. Either taxpayers don’t want to pay for the high upfront costs, or there isn’t room in the school’s budget to start the project. 

Financing options for energy-efficient upgrades and projects have been few and far between the last several decades. However, that is starting to change as of lately. Below you'll discover how you can overcome a lack of budget or present cash to progress with your proposed energy efficiency project. 

Lack of budget is the number one reason energy efficiency projects don’t get approved.

Energy efficiency projects require upfront investments, which many business owners have not budgeted. As a result, many projects don’t move forward due to lack of available capital, despite often-impressive ROIs and short payback periods. 

 An up-to-date parking lot lighting system is essential to having a safe and secure property. While you may have installed good parking lot lights years ago, it’s likely that you need an upgrade if your facility is ten years or older. Outdoor lights—both parking lot and facility lighting—used to concentrate on cosmetic enhancement instead of focusing on providing an area that’s safe to walk and drive in, as well as offer security from crime. The foundation of many lawsuits have been opened due to negligence in inadequate parking lot lighting.

Partnering with an LED lighting supplier is one of the most curtial parts of being able to deliver quality service to your customers. It's not enough to just have any old supplier - you need the right supplier that has quality product, predictable turn-around and reliable customer service. The wrong supplier can put you in a tight spot with your customer. But telling the difference isn't always easy at first. If you are an energy savings company looking for a partnership with an LED supplier, here are 10 questions you need to ask.

1. How solid is your LED lighting supplier?

Why Use Energy Audit Software?

Energy audits are extremely labor intensive, requiring physical walk throughs, large amounts of manual data collection and analysis of energy consumption. In order to do this, usually at least one year of utility bills have to be gathered and analyzed. For seasonality and benchmarking, utility bills dating back multiple years becomes necessary. Collecting, organizing, analyzing, and reporting all this data manually is quite an ordeal, which is why energy auditing software offerings have been developed and are gaining popularity.

Selling energy efficiency should be easy right? Who does not want to save energy and thus save money? Everyone wants to reduce their carbon footprint, and businesses want to save money and improve their profitability. The savings are obvious and the technology is proven. Why, then, are substantial energy projects so hard to get sold and implemented?

LED Lighting is becoming more popular for auto dealers, manufacturing plants, gas stations, and municipalities. Why? LED Lighting will increase safety, visibility, security and reduce operating cost, all while being virtually no maintenance.  

Ever since the creation of the commercial light bulb in 1869, the world of lighting technology has constantly evolved. One of the biggest changes currently taking place is the transfer of traditional lighting sources, such as metal halide (MH) and high-pressure sodium (HPS), to light-emitting diode (LED) lighting.

LED lighting has many applications for Universities and College Campuses as college students participate in many activities during evening hours. Since many college students take evening classes, do late night lab work, late night design projects, and social activities it is important for universities to create a well lit, safe environment for its student body. The safe environment along with the desire of our younger generation to be green and reduce their carbon footprint has created a great situation for LED lighting retrofits for Universities and Colleges. 

Spring Arbor University recently installed a full color LED Display on their campus in Spring Arbor, Michigan. With many schools and universities upgrading to LED Signs, Spring Arbor decided a new EM display was the best route to achieve their goals.