Effective January 5th, 2009, Idaho Power has improved their Easy Upgrades program by increasing the incentives available to building owners performing energy-efficient lighting retrofits.

Since early 2007, Idaho Power's Easy Upgrades program has helped commercial and industrial property owners improve their existing buildings. Easy Upgrades offers incentives of up to $100,000 for enhancing the efficiency of ighting, cooling systems and other commercial equipment. Since its introduction, over 600 energy-saving projects have been completed and earned incentive payments through the Easy Upgrades program. Those projects are saving more than 30 million kilowatt hours per year, enough energy to power about 2,000 typical homes.

The table below summarizes the incentives available for lighting retrofit projects through Idaho Power's Easy Upgrades program:

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For years, the standard method of lighting gymnasiums has been the 400W Metal Halide High Bay. This has led to gyms with deteriorating light levels and poor playing conditions that are expensive to operate. New technologies have allowed lighting designers to specify T5 High Output (T5HO) Fluorescent High Bay Fixtures in place of the more inefficient metal halide fixtures. This shift has reduced the power consumption of gymnasium lighting systems, provided better quality light for all sports activities, and has allowed for a more versatile environment in school or recreational center gyms.

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T5 and T5HO fluorescent high bay fixtures and other T5-based specialty lights are built around a linear fluorescent tube lamp.  Like other types of lamps, the number in the name of the lamp reflects its size.  The “T5” name reflects the diameter of the tube in eighths of an inch.  A T5 lamp is five-eighths of an inch (5/8”).  Similarly, a T8 lamp is eight-eighths (or one inch) in diameter and a T12 is 12 eighths (or 1-1/2 inches) in diameter.  One of the features that make a T5 bulb and T5-based high bay light fixtures more efficient is the fact that the lamp is 37% narrower tube than a T8 and over 55% narrower than a T12 lamp.

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