Lighting is integral to the business operations of the owner/operator of a logistics facility but customer’s can’t be charged for it, it doesn’t help customer retention and it doesn’t build brand loyalty; in truth it is an expensive necessity. The good news is that it is also the lowest hanging fruit for a business looking to achieve a significant cost reduction.

According to the Department of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources in 2012 “Businesses with restricted access to capital will evaluate the opportunity cost of capital invested in energy efficiency against investment in their core business, which may offer more attractive returns than a competing energy efficiency project”.

UrbanVolt is an Irish ESCO (Energy Services Company) that is causing quite a stir in the energy market in Ireland. Their proposal is very simple; customers can have the latest eLED (enhanced LED) lights retrofitted in their premises for no money down. Payments are made to UrbanVolt on a monthly basis from money saved by the customer on their electricity bill.

Kevin Maughan, UrbanVolt CEO says, “For our commercial customers, energy is not only the second largest business cost after people, it is also the fastest growing cost every year”.

What if these businesses could save 50% of their energy costs overnight? What if this saving could be made with zero capital investment and improved their cash flow from day one? What if this energy saving could be locked in and guaranteed for 5 to 10 years?

UrbanVolt provides all of these benefits to their rapidly growing customer base, by retrofitting their eLED lighting solutions into commercial applications. UrbanVolt eLED solutions are up to 90% more efficient than legacy lighting products on a ‘like-for-like’ basis. So how are these savings achieved? Traditional lighting, (incandescent lamp or fluorescent tube) is essentially a heat source, light is merely a byproduct.

For example a 100W incandescent bulb is about 2.5% efficient, this means 2.5 watts of light and 97.5 watts of heat, fluorescent tubes are approx. 8% efficient, so 8 watts of light and 92 watts of heat. The life span of these types of lights is less than 3,000 hours meaning lots of maintenance and re-lamping cost.

It is surprising that a technology lacking sturdiness and that is so inefficient has dominated lighting for a century. “LEDs represent perhaps the most significant breakthrough of the last 130 years in lighting technology,” says Pike Research analyst Eric Bloom.

The primary output of an LED is light, not heat, and this is the secret to the technology’s energy efficiency and long life span. UrbanVolt lights are >95% efficient meaning you need to draw a lot less energy to get a lot more light than traditional fixtures.

So how do UrbanVolt offer their industry leading technology for no money down? As explained by Graham Deane UrbanVolt COO “The current supply chain for lighting is bloated with the end customer bearing the burden of the cost of too many players, we manufacture and install our lights so we cut out at least three levels of mark up”.

The UrbanVolt offering completely inverts the risk in the transaction. Any company wanting to upgrade their lighting today has to pay a contractor the full cost of the lights and installation upfront and accrue return on investment over a number of years.

With UrbanVolt’s model, there is no capital outlay; no risk to the consumer, no maintenance costs and cash flow improvement is seen immediately.

C.I.L.T. has negotiated a preferential rate for its members for a limited period of time. Call UrbanVolt today on 01-6971500 for a no obligation site survey and quotation to find out how much money your business could be saving.