Lighting up energy savings

The NSW Government’s Energy Savings Scheme (ESS) assists businesses to be more sustainable through various energy-saving activities. To be eligible under the scheme, applicants must be a business located in NSW and create genuine energy savings through one of the scheme’s approved activities.

There are generous financial incentives available for lighting upgrades. The incentives are measured by existing lighting equipment, hours of operation and are converted into measured energy savings.

Listed below is a step-by-step guide to how it works:

1. Businesses invest in energy-efficient lighting equipment to reduce their energy use.
2. Energy Saving Certificates (ESCs) are generated through the reduction in energy use by an Accredited Certificate Provider (ACP).
3. Liable parties such as electricity retailers then buy those energy saving certificates. 
4. The value of energy saving certificates is returned to the business that generated them, retrospectively or as an up-front discount.

Andrew Randall, Managing Director of Easy Being Green, explains: "The ESS is a terrific practical direct-action initiative of the NSW Government to assist business to reduce their carbon emissions and significantly reduce their costs. All NSW businesses should be reviewing their energy usage and, in tough economic conditions, the ESS helps to make energy efficiency a very simple cost reduction.

“An energy efficient lighting upgrade under the ESS has to follow all relevant Australian Standards and guidelines set out by Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART)."

Easy Being Green is an accredited certificate provider through the scheme and recently upgraded the lighting throughout the Marriott Hotel in the Sydney CBD.

The Marriott with 32 floors, 518 rooms, 45 suites, 21 meeting rooms and 1410 m² of total meeting space was a high consumer of electricity for its lighting.

Easy Being Green installed over 6000 LED downlights and over 1500 T5 conversion kits which accumulate 746,790 kWh savings per year. This has provided an estimated cost savings in excess of $125,000 per annum.

“This is real money we can spend on upgrading our chillers and investing in other projects in the hotel," says Cyrus Tolentino Director of Engineering at the Sydney Harbour Marriott.

“For the new lighting equipment we chose a 6 W LED with 30,000 hour life span to replace 50 W halogen downlights and a 22 W-T5 Conversion Kit with 50,000 hours’ life span to replace our old 36 W fluorescent tubes in the car park, plant rooms and throughout the back of house.”

“This project has reduced approximately 800 t of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to 160 medium-sized cars removed off the road.”