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incentives for networked lighting controls grew by 8% to 450 in 2024, with about 53 percent of these rebates being prescriptive, which is a more channel-friendly type of rebate than custom rebates. Additionally, most are now established on a per-luminaire basis, with an average of $211 per luminaire installed and controlled. It is also interesting to see 2% of networked lighting control rebate programs offered as midstream/ instant rebates. Commercial lighting rebates may evolve to accommodate the coming LED era. As LED saturation increases, rebates are likely to evolve to enable energy efficiency programs to continue to derive substantial energy savings from this category where possible.
Popular lighting control categories featured in majority of prescriptive commercial lighting rebate programs in 2020-2024, with average rebate amounts per product for programs in the U.S. and Canada. (Networked control systems are not included, as programs are still relatively unstandardized.) Source: BriteSwitch RebatePro for Lighting rebate database, February 2024.
available for controls as well. This continues to position lighting controls as an attractive upfront addition to a lighting upgrade. Popular rebates include remote-mounted, wallbox, and luminaire-mounted occupancy sensors; photocells; and daylight dimming systems. In 2024, all of these categories are seeing an average increase of 2-7%. Network lighting control rebates are showing signs of standardization. Networked lighting controls are intelligent systems in which devices are connected within a network to enact control strategies. The flexibility of this type of system can produce substantial energy savings, making it attractive for adoption by rebate programs, while availability of data can produce non-energy benefits. Traditionally, rebate programs treated networked controls as a custom option, but in recent years, a significant number of prescriptive rebates became available. This coincided with a new DesignLights Consortium (DLC) Qualified Products List for Networked Lighting Controls, used by a majority of prescriptive programs to qualify systems as being eligible for rebate. According to BriteSwitch, the number of utilities incorporating
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designing lighting
In the future, commercial lighting rebates may shift to favor higherefficiency LED lighting, targeting first-generation with current-generation LED technology (potentially seeing a $/W rather than a per-product rebate), lighting redesign approaches, more strongly tying lighting and controls as a package, networked and luminaire-level lighting controls, HVAC integration, and specialized applications such as UV disinfection, data, and tunable lighting. As lighting controls are underutilized in existing buildings, they are likely to play a strong role.
Looking at networked lighting controls alone, the DLC estimated that widespread adoption could reduce average lighting energy consumption by half. In 2023, the DLC published a study that underscored the energy savings potential of networked controls and recommended revising energy efficiency incentive models to capture the full benefits of controlled lighting, including pairing with HVAC systems in large buildings.
GETTING REBATES Rebates take time and effort, but the results can be lucrative as they offer a potentially substantial sweetener for lighting and control upgrade proposals. Consider rebates. First and foremost, evaluate the potential impact of rebates on your sales and include them in proposals if they make sense for your project. Get to know applicable programs. Research and stay on top of rebate programs where you do business. Some manufacturers offer support in identifying rebate programs. Get educated on the process, requirements, and the amount of time that various steps require from pre-approval to receiving the check.