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Saving Money on Your Lighting Upgrade with Energy Rebates

How much can you save on lighting rebate incentives?

Many utilities and state energy programs offer rebates or discounts to commercial customers who upgrade to energy-efficient lighting? As of 2025, around 78% of states have active incentive programs covering lighting and controls. With support from utility relations teams and your local Genlyte sales professional, you could qualify for significant savings by specifying energy-efficient lamps, luminaires, or control systems from Genlyte Solutions in your next project. Though program terms vary — prescriptive vs custom, fixture type restrictions, funding caps — many rebate programs are easier to access than they appear. To get started, review the information on this website and contact your local Genlyte Solutions sales professional to explore what is available in your area.

Encentiv Energy, 2022

77% of the US is currently covered by an active commercial or industrial lighting rebate program, whether that’s prescriptive, midstream, or custom.

Visit our Rebate Finder Tool Visit our Payback Calculator Tool

Why do commercial rebates matter?

Rebates provide significant advantages for your business. By upgrading to energy-efficient lighting and reducing electricity consumption, you not only lower your utility bills but also receive financial incentives from utility companies—essentially, you’re being rewarded for saving energy!

These rebates help offset the upfront costs of energy-saving projects, shortening the payback period and making the investment more attractive for property owners. Beyond the financial benefits, implementing energy-efficient lighting also supports environmental sustainability, helping your business reduce its carbon footprint while operating more efficiently.

Why do utility companies offer rebates?

Utilities set annual energy savings goals which they then strive to meet. Offering incentives to commercial customers is an energy-saving alternative to the greater capital expense of expanding power plant capacity. It is often more economical for utility companies to offer rebates than to build a new power plant and deal with increased infrastructure maintenance.

Which utilities offer rebates? What lighting products are included?

There are over 3,000 utility companies across the US and many of them offer lighting rebate programs. Rebates are available for a variety of lighting products including lamps, luminaires and controls.

Click here to find TLED, HID replacement lamp and luminaires rebates in your area.

Signify offers an extensive portfolio of lighting products, most of which qualify for multiple utility rebates at any given time. Easily search our Luminaires e-Catalog and use the “Energy Certifications” search option at the top of the page to filter products based on DLC or Energy Star qualification.

DLC and Energy Star designations for our lamps and luminaires are indicated on the individual spec sheets and/or product bulletins which can be found in our professional lamps and luminaires product catalog.

While 2022 is the latest published data of this kind, rebate programs have seen a modest increase of approximately 3% in 2025, indicating a stabilization after several years of decline.

Encentiv Energy, 2022

What are the different types of energy efficiency programs available?

There are several types of programs offered by utilities, three of which are briefly mentioned below.

Signing document, written Agreement, paperwork

Prescriptive

The utility offering a prescriptive rebate gives specific guidelines about energy-saving upgrades and the rebate amount customers get for performing those upgrades. There are generally a number of specific requirements that go along with prescriptive rebates. The customer (contractors, installers, purchasers) typically files for the rebate after the purchase is made as part of the post installation rebate process.

Custom

A Custom Rebate program is designed to incentivize unusual equipment or process changes that will reduce energy consumption and energy demand but on equipment that doesn’t meet the requirements of the utility’s prescriptive rebate program. Instead of having specific guidelines about what energy-saving upgrades to perform, the customer must instead prove that a project will save energy and the rebate value varies depending on the amount of kWh and KW saved.

Distributor sale, transaction, point of purchase

Midstream

Midstream programs were designed to encourage equipment manufacturers to develop energy-efficient products and encourage distributors to keep these energy efficiency products in stock. Midstream programs offer wholesale price buy-downs to distributors allowing for immediate savings to be realized by customers at the point of purchase. Utility program managers reimburse distributors for the instant rebates they have provided their customers at the point of sale.

Lighting Controls Rebates

The availability of rebates for networked lighting controls is expected to continue growing, driven in part by the ongoing expansion of the DLC Networked Lighting Controls (NLC) Qualified Product List (QPL). The DLC NLC QPL identifies systems that meet the minimum technical requirements for eligibility in utility rebate programs. As of November 1,2024, the QPL has expanded significantly, now listing 72 systems from over 40 manufacturers, reflecting broader market adoption and increased opportunities for incentives, including systems from Signify.

Learn more about Interact for Intelligent Buildings, our comprehensive commercial wireless controls system
Learn more about Interact for Public Spaces, our outdoor wireless control system for smart cities

Want to know the return on investment on your next project?

Showing the return on investment, on a project has the opportunity to make or break a deal. With the Payback Calculator Tool, you can revolutionize your proposals by quickly showing prospects on the ROI for an LED conversion, along with additional rebates & energy savings. Users can receive a downloadable report with analyses that is based on the project specified. You can show your customers different analytics such as, project details, energy savings, utility rebates, ROI, payback timeline, and environmental impact. Reports can be customized to every project’s needs by adding additional ‘rooms,’ and customizing lighting fixtures per room.

Check out our Payback calculator tool

Explore our Lighting Solutions

Genlyte Solutions is constantly offering new, innovative, energy-efficient lighting products for new construction and retrofit lighting projects. See below to learn more about these solutions for your next commercial or industrial project.

Learn more about Genlyte

Visit our blog, Light Your World!

Learn how new lighting technologies such as LED are making it more possible to reduce energy usage and shape the future with groundbreaking new lighting applications.

Light Your World

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