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What can you do a home?

Changing the world starts with simple actions. When you replace light bulbs or entire light fixtures in your home with ones that have earned the government's ENERGY STAR, you help preserve energy resources and reduce the risks of global warming while saving money and time buying and changing lights in your home.

ENERGY STAR qualified lighting provides bright, warm light but uses about 75% less energy than standard lighting, produce 75 percent less heat, and lasts up to 10 times longer.

To save the most energy and money, replace your highest used fixtures or the light bulbs in them with energy-efficient models. The five highest use fixtures in a home are typically the kitchen ceiling lights, the living or family room table and floor lamps, and outdoor porch or post lamp. ENERGY STAR qualified lighting fixtures and replacement bulbs can be found at home improvement and hardware stores, lighting showrooms, and other retail stores, including on-line outlets.

The smallest things can add up to a real difference. We encourage you to change out the light fixtures or bulbs at home that you use most with ENERGY STAR qualified models. If every American home replaced their 5 most frequently used light fixtures or the bulbs in them with ones that have earned the ENERGY STAR, we would save close to $8 billion each year in energy costs, and together we would prevent the greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from nearly 10 million cars.

FACT: The energy used in the average home can be responsible for more than twice the greenhouse gas emissions of the average car. When you use less energy at home, you reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and help protect our environment from the risks of global climate change.

This first step may seem self-evident, but many a lighting installation has been designed with expensive and sophisticated lighting efficiency equipment such as electronic ballasts, mirror reflectors, daylight control and so on but is designed to deliver twice the illuminance required by standards.

Even with all this sophistication the lighting system will use more energy than a standard design that provides the correct lighting level. Consequently selecting the correct light level can be your biggest energy saver.

Lighting Choices

We strive to deliver the very best value for our clients, whether you have an aging lighting system in need of retrofitting, de-lamping fixtures, new fixtures, planning an expansion, or simply interested in reducing overall energy costs. MAC Solutions has the perfect lighting solution to reach your goals. We offer the latest, state-of-the-art lighting technologies, including: pulse start metal halides, photocells, ultrasonic and dual-tech occupancy sensors, and LED (Light Emitting Diodes), just to name a few.

Selecting the appropriate lighting color that compliments the desired ambiance of the facility is also an important decision. For instance, a reddish light enhances skin tone and is perfect for restrooms and lobbies. Metal halide lamps are best suited for security lighting and exterior lighting because of its bright-white illumination, which creates a secure and comfortable lighting environment. MAC Solutions offers the latest selection of lamps, ballasts & fixtures that are available in several colors and temperature ranges.

MAC Solutions suggests standardizing your energy efficient lighting system to ease the headache of inventory. We utilize an infinite number of manufacturers because this significantly reduces the cost of material. However, we do not combine various lighting technologies. For example, we try not to mix pulse start metal halide technology with standard HID lighting because this commonly creates an uneven distribution of light.

Compact Fluorescent

A compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), also known as a compact fluorescent light bulb is a type of fluorescent lamp designed to replace an incandescent lamp. Many CFL's can fit in the existing incandescent light fixtures.

Compared to incandescent lamps of the same luminous flux, CFL's use less energy and have a longer rated life. In the United States, a CFL can save over $30 in electricity costs over the lamp's lifetime compared to an incandescent lamp and save 2000 times their own weight in greenhouse gases. The purchase price of a CFL is higher than that of an incandescent lamp of the same luminous output, but this cost is recovered in energy savings.

Halogen

A halogen lamp also uses a tungsten filament, but it is encased inside a much smaller quartz envelope. Because the envelope is so close to the filament, it would melt if it were made from glass. The gas inside the envelope is also different, it consists of a gas from the halogen group. These gases have a very interesting property: They combine with tungsten vapor. If the temperature is high enough, the halogen gas will combine with tungsten atoms as they evaporate and redeposit them on the filament. This recycling process lets the filament last a lot longer. In addition, it is now possible to run the filament hotter, meaning you get more light per unit of energy. You still get a lot of heat, though; and because the quartz envelope is so close to the filament, it is extremely hot compared to a normal light bulb.

T5 HO High Bays

T5 lighting is a relatively new light source in the United States that was originally developed as a light source in combination with specialized reflectors for aquarium lighting. However, because of the benefits of T5 high output lighting, this light source is being specified more and more in applications where standard Metal Halide high bays are typically used.

T5 High Output Fluorescent benefits include:

Energy Efficiency, a typical 54 Watt T5 HO (High Output) bulb produces 5000 lumens which is equivalent to 92.6 lumens per watt. The higher lumens per watt translates into big energy savings. Maintained foot candles are almost always better per energy dollars spent.

Excellent Lumen Maintenance, T5 fluorescent lamps lose only 5-6% of their lumen output between the rated initial and maintained lumens (maintained lumens are calculated at 40% of rated life). By contrast, standard metal halide lamp lumens typically deteriorate about 35% over the same period. As the lamps continue to age, the difference becomes even more pronounced.

Instant Restrike, In the event of a power interruption, fluorescent lamps are back on instantly, unlike HID sources which can take several minutes to restrike.

Control Friendly, The instant on capability of fluorescent lamps makes them ideal for use with occupancy sensors and photo cells, further increasing energy savings. Plus they are more cost-effective and versatile when it comes to dimming.

Improved Color Rendering, T5 lamps have a Color Rendering Index of 82. Metal halide lamps, on the other hand, have a CRI of 65 to 70 which negatively impacts visual acuity.

Small Size, T5 bulbs are extremely thin at 5/8" diameter rather than the standard 1 ½"diameter of standard fluorescent tubes. This slim profile makes T5 fluorescent bulbs more efficient than standard fluorescent tubes and lend themselves to slim fixtures. Linear fluorescent lamps also provide light from many angles, reducing troublesome shadows.

Color Shift, unlike metal halide, fluorescent lamps maintain consistent color throughout their life.

Color Choices, fluorescent sources offer a wide range of color options from 3000K to 6500K full spectrum daylight.

Improved Lamp Life, fluorescent lamps last two to three times longer than metal halide lamps.

Dimming HID

High-intensity discharge (HID) lamp dimming has grown in popularity in recent years. Dimming HID lamps can result in energy savings, peak demand reduction and greater flexibility in multi-use spaces.

Dimming reduces energy costs by reducing the input power to the lighting system. It can be used to reduce peak demand and therefore reduce costly utility demand charges that can be a significant component of the total utility cost. And it offers greater flexibility to adapt spaces to different uses.

High Pressure Sodium

High pressure sodium (HPS) lamps are smaller and contain additional elements such as mercury, and producing a dark pink glow when first struck, and a pinkish orange light when warmed. Some bulbs also briefly produce a pure to bluish white light in between. This is probably from the mercury glowing before the sodium is completely warmed. The sodium D-line is the main source of light from the HPS lamp, and it is extremely pressure broadened by the high sodium pressures in the lamp; hence colors of objects under them can be distinguished. This leads them to be used in areas where good color rendering is important, or desired.

Induction

Practically maintenance free, induction lighting offers many features that make it an attractive light source and is emerging as one of the newest technologies in lighting. With a 100,000 hour rated life, these systems seldom need replacing. Particularly useful in applications where lamp replacement is cumbersome and expensive, as in some outdoor applications and in hard to reach areas such as tunnels, airports, public facilities, freezers, and many others.

LED (Light Emitting Diode)

The solid state construction of LED's withstands shock, vibration, frequent switching and environmental extremes without compromising their long life, typically 100,000 hours or more. LED's deliver 100% of their energy as light whereas incandescent bulbs waste 90% and more of their energy in light blocked by the lens or filter.

Linear Fluorescent

Because they are large radiant tubes, Fluorescent lamps are good at providing general or ambient light, and evenly washing large architectural planes (walls and coves). An abundance of even, shadowless light is just what we want in many spaces like storage, utility rooms and workshops. Appropriately applying fluorescent lighting in lobbies or conference areas where more drama and atmosphere is usually wanted can be a challenge. Indirect cove lighting, luminous soffits, and light shelves are all ways of creatively using linear fluorescent lighting in these areas.

Metal Halide

Like other gas-discharge lamps such as the very similar mercury vapor lamps, metal halide lamps produce light by passing an electric arc through a mixture of gases. In a metal halide lamp, the compact arc tube contains a high pressure mixture of argon, mercury, and a variety of metal halides. The mixture of halides will affect the nature of light produced, influencing the correlated color temperature and intensity (making the light bluer, or redder, for example). The argon gas in the lamp is easily ionized, and facilitates striking the arc across the two electrodes when voltage is first applied to the lamp. The heat generated by the arc then vaporizes the mercury and metal halides, which produce light as the temperature and pressure increases. Common operating conditions inside the arc tube are 70-90 PSI (480-620 kPa) and 2000°F (1090°C).

Like all other gas discharge lamps, metal halide lamps require auxiliary equipment to provide proper starting and operating voltages and regulate the current flow in the lamp.

About 24% of the energy used by metal halide lamps produces light (65 to 115 lm/W[1]), making them generally more efficient than fluorescent lamps, and substantially more efficient than incandescent bulbs.

Gas Filled Specialty Lamps

Xenon bulbs offer numerous advantages over traditional Argon, Krypton or Vacuum filled lamps. The new devices offer suppressed tungsten evaporation meaning a cleaner, longer burn with less blackening. A three times longer life and an increased light output by typically 30% more luminous flux are further benefits.

Bulb wall temperature is 30°C lower compared with corresponding Argon filled lamps. This is significant when the devices are in close proximity to surrounding plastic or wood materials, which could be damaged. Furthermore, Xenon lamps also benefit from a whiter light. A higher filament temperature provides excellent contrast ratio and affords attractive sparkling appearance to the eye.

Self Illuminating Exit Signs

The technology is actually quite simple. Self-luminous signs never need to be "charged" with visible light or an external power source. Instead, they glow for years without any interference required whatsoever, courtesy of an ongoing chemical reaction between the layers of printed film. The result is precisely what so many of us have been seeking for decades, a foolproof way to keep escape routes illuminated no matter what outages or flooding strikes that facility.

illuminating opportunities for cutting edge energy efficient lighting solutions

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