Written by Lachlan Strike
On behalf of ANL Lighting

The Essential Services Commission (ESC) is responsible for bringing in the VEET Scheme back in 2009, along with it the ESS scheme in New South Wales and the EEIS in Canberra are fighting for the same goal to lower energy use and in turn pollution across Victoria, New South Wales and Canberra.

These schemes hope to accomplish this by offering rebates on energy efficient products, making the switch more affordable and encouraging investment with the ultimate goal of reducing green house gas emissions.

Since then businesses have continually grown offers and options around this rebate scheme, despite the substantial accreditation processes required to become a supplier for these energy schemes sadly not all of these options are created equal. To clarify the significance of this statement correctly, using these schemes can yield immense savings for the consumer through continual energy savings spurred on by the rebate funded energy efficient lighting.

You can’t just trial and error your way through however as the rebate is available only once, therefore making the right choice the first time is essential. Lamps and fittings that fall within the schemes guidelines range widely in brand and model and with those varying suppliers comes varying levels of quality. Sadly the schemes efficiency requirements are solely focused on energy output, the overall efficiency and longevity of the light is not assessed nor assured. A lamp may run with fantastic energy efficiency but corrode quickly with time. As someone looking to get the most of these rebates while they can long term effectiveness is an obvious goal.

This post is not pushing to sway you in one direction or another but instead point out the often overlooked fact that meeting the numerous schemes standards does not necessitate quality. As discussed, with such limited chances heading into the decision with as much information as possible is the key to a positive long term outcome.

Long standing businesses are a great place to start, new businesses started up to take advantage of the schemes, encouraged to make a quick profit but often without the necessary long term foresight and experience gathered over a long career to make informed decisions on their product.

An established company that has existed before the schemes were put in place has already spent years choosing and culling product to find the level of quality required to conduct long term business. Another key factor to keep an eye out for is warranty, a long warranty shows faith in the product and allows the most time for you to reap the rewards of the scheme without fear of being left in the dark. It’s important to note that although a long warranty may seem foolproof you need to rely on the company to achieve a successful claim, a young company imposes more risk offering a warranty longer than the company has been in business should be treated tentatively, although there is no guarantee they will go out of business there is no assurance they won’t either. This loops back around to the first point of finding a long standing business increasing the chances dramatically that they will be around to fulfil the warranty for years to come.

Ultimately in any situation where one is spoiled for choice statistics demand that not all are going to be ideal, but knowing that discrepancies within the schemes exist and not all lighting and their suppliers aren’t created equal is half the battle, armed with that knowledge you can make a more informed and hopefully more fruitful business decision.