Green Lights is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) flagship voluntary program. Green Lights was the first non-regulatory effort designed to reduce pollution, promote public-private partnership, encourage environmental leadership, and cut participants’ energy costs by using energy-efficient lighting. The basic principles of Green Lights are that it is voluntary public/private partnership to install energy-efficient lighting, and it is profit based.

Lighting accounts for 20-25 percent of all electricity sold in the United States. Too often, organizations treat lighting as an expense rather than an opportunity for investment. Green Lights participants realize average rates of return on their investment of 30 percent or more. They reduce their lighting electricity bill by more than half while maintaining or improving lighting quality. If Green Lights were fully implemented in all facility space in the United States, it would save over 65 million kilowatts of electricity annually, reducing the national electric bill by $16 billion per year. With more than 2,000 participants in the Green Lights program, successes are many and remarkable. to date these participants are:

• installing energy efficient lighting in more than 5 billion square feet of U.S. facility space;
• preventing over 3.3 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year;
• reducing their use of electricity by more than 2 billion kilowatt-hours per year;
• saving more than $172 million per year.

The Green Lights participants include all kinds of organizations from all over the country. Partners include corporations of all sizes, nonprofit organizations, and federal, state, and local government agencies. Health care facilities, universities and colleges, and restaurant and hotel chains are just a few examples of the organizations that have agreed to upgrade their lighting systems.

Green Lights asks its members to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. EPA. In the agreement, participants are asked to survey 100 percent of their facilities and, within 5 years of signing the agreement, to upgrade 60 percent of the square footage that can be upgraded profitably without compromising lighting quality. Participants also agree to appoint an implementation manager to oversee their progress in the program, and to report at least annually to EPA on their upgrade progress.

EPA provides a range of support systems to help Green Lights participants obtain information on energy-efficient lighting technology, financing options, and public recognition opportunities.

To date Michigan has completed lighting upgrades on 14,812,103 sq.ft. of its state facilities. Surveys have also been completed for 21,302,578 additional square feet. Dollars saved per year on our lighting upgrades amount to $1,660,489. Upgrades have reduced the lighting load by 5,349 kW, with an electricity reduction of 24,544,851 kWh.

Annual energy achievements resulting from Michigan’s lighting upgrade include, pollution prevention of:

Michigan’s environmental achievements in Green Lights are equivalent to the removal of 5,274 cars from U.S. highways or the planting of 7,225 acres of trees in U.S. forests. Each car removed is equivalent to preventing 10,000 lbs of CO2. Every acre of trees planted represents 7,300 lbs of CO2 prevented.

We are pleased to announce that Michigan has successfully completed its commitment under the Green Lights partnership with the EPA. Michigan initially signed a Green Lights Memorandum of Understanding with USEPA in 1996, joining a nationwide effort to reduce energy used for commercial lighting. For details, please see the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality publication Environmental Assistance Division Improves its Lighting and Saves Energy.

To obtain more information on how to save money and energy with Green Lights, visit http://www.energystar.gov. 

For more information on lighting efficiency, financing of upgrades, Green Lights implementation, or potential lighting savings, contact James Baker 517-373-2461.