Empire State Building Company Selects Lutron Lighting Control Technology to Help Achieve Sustainability Goals

Energy-saving lighting control manufacturer Lutron Electronics announced today that it has been selected by the Empire State Building Company, LLC, owner of the Empire State Building (ESB), the World's Most Famous Office Building, to provide sustainable lighting control solutions for pre-built tenant spaces throughout the iconic, 1930s, pre-war structure. The Lutron solution, developed in collaboration with ESB property manager Jones Lang LaSalle, is expected to provide total lighting energy savings of up to 65% and a reduced installed payback period of 2.75 years (down from 6 years).

ESB is undergoing a building-wide retrofit to improve energy efficiency and financial performance as part of the Clinton Climate Initiative’s Building Retrofit program. The project is designed to reduce the building’s energy use by 38% and energy bills by $4.4 million a year, while also preventing 105,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next 15 years.

ESB pre-built tenant spaces offer companies turnkey solutions for building out offices that exactly meet their needs. The ESB’s goals for the energy retrofit of these spaces include:

1. Enhancing performance while reducing renovation costs
2. Reducing the cost and time required for future tenant improvements
3. Not compromising on tenant service and comfort
4. Adopting solutions that integrate and interoperate with other building systems

The use of Lutron solutions in these spaces will help the ESB meet their goals and offer potential tenants the opportunity to operate in energy-efficient spaces while saving energy and benefiting from reduced electric bills.

Lutron solutions used in the ESB include:

• Occupancy/vacancy sensors that turn lights off when spaces are unoccupied and daylight dimming controls that adjust light levels based on available daylight
• Wireless components for easy retrofit and minimal disruption

These products deliver world-class performance and meet stringent return-on-investment requirements as defined by ESB ownership. In fact, with the adoption of Lutron control solutions, the installed payback period for lighting controls was reduced from 6 years to 2.75 years.

Energy and financial savings are critical as older buildings like ESB are converted to new, sustainable standards. Lighting uses the majority of electricity in a typical commercial building (39% of annual electricity use³) and a considerable amount of building peak loads (30% of peak electricity use⁴).

Lutron is an acknowledged leader in providing smart, scalable, integrated and affordable solutions with proven technology that can reduce lighting electricity by up to 65% on any given project¹. Across the country, Lutron estimates that its products – including lighting controls and sensors – save the nation nearly 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, which is approximately $1 billion in utility costs, nearly 7 million tons of CO2 emissions, or the equivalent of more than 7 large coal power plants².

In addition to creating a simple, repeatable, whole-building retrofit solution, ESB ownership is leading the industry in sustainable design for commercial retrofits. According to Malkin, Lutron was highly committed to helping the project’s designers, specifiers and contractors understand how to estimate, install, program and use these new products and solutions as efficiently as possible. With more than 50 years of experience in energy-saving innovation, Lutron was a perfect fit.