UMass Dartmouth receives second grant for LED light fixture upgrades

New efficient light bulbs in the UMass Law School building funded by Eversource.

UMass Dartmouth recently received incentives from Eversource for $15,056 to fund the replacement of over 1,900 older, less efficient light bulbs for new LED models in the UMass Law School building, located at 333 Faunce Corner Road in Dartmouth.

Eversource works with its customers to provide incentives for a variety of energy efficiency upgrades to help lower electricity and gas use, energy costs, and carbon emissions. Inefficient bulbs can often be replaced at no cost to the customer. The customer only needs to provide the staffing to change the bulbs. In addition to the immediate energy savings, another benefit of LED bulb technology is that they last at least 12 years.

Eversource has simplified the process of upgrading old linear fluorescent lamps to new, high-efficiency LED lighting, by working with a network of distributor partners to provide incentives at the point of sale, these partners will even handle the exchanging and recycling of inefficient fluorescent, HID, or incandescent lamps.

“We’re proud to help UMass Dartmouth save on energy costs and lower their carbon emissions,” said Tilak Subrahmanian, Vice President of Energy Efficiency for Eversource. “LED lighting is a great way for customers to dramatically lower energy use at little or no cost with our incentives. Lighting upgrades are just one of the many energy-saving solutions we provide support for.”

Eversource and UMass Dartmouth have been working with Standard Electric to provide the pre-approved bulbs, which DLC Premium products, which maximize the savings to the University.

“Standard Electric’s partnership with Eversource on this program has allowed us to bring tremendous energy savings to customers like UMass Dartmouth with little to no upfront cost for the material we provide. Applying utility incentives at the time of purchase helps to get projects moving forward and has an immediate positive impact on the return on investment” says Nate Pedro, Director of Energy Solutions at Standard Electric.

“At UMass Law, we teach our students to be thoughtful when considering how their efforts impact the communities they serve, and this same thoughtfulness goes into our larger responsibility to sustainability. The installation of new LED lights will bolster our building’s energy-saving efforts and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” said Dr. John Quinn, Assistant Dean for Public Interest Law and External Relations at UMass Law.

UMass Dartmouth has already replaced lighting on the main campus in the Liberal Arts, Dion, and College of Visual and Performing Arts buildings. This encompassed over 6,500 bulbs being replaced. The savings to the University and Commonwealth are immediate as the program was paid for through Eversource’s incentives and the bulbs were installed by University personnel.

“By making this transition, we are lowering our costs of operation and being responsible stewards of funds received from student’s tuition payments and the annual support from the legislature. It also reduces greenhouse gas emission at the University in our efforts to reach carbon neutrality by 2030,” said Assistant Director of Campus Sustainability, Jamie Jacquart.