When businesses look to cut their energy bills, Quantum Lighting LLC helps them see the light.


For years, the 29-year-old Spokane-based lighting consultant has worked with schools to replace or retrofit fluorescent lighting systems with high-efficiency components designed to lower energy costs.


Just over two years ago, however, Quantum began diversifying its client base and seeking more commercial customers, and the move is paying off, says Quantum General Manager Jay Filer.


We had 20 percent growth in sales last year, he says. Were projecting 20 percent growth this year.


In the few years prior to the commercial push, the company posted annual sales in the $800,000-to-$1.5 million range, Filer says. Last year, however, it brought in annual revenues of $2.3 million, and its on track for about $2.8 million in sales this year.


In recent months, Quantum has secured two relationships it expects will account for a big chunk of this years sales increase. The company has received a preferred vendor designation for lighting replacements in about 1,000 Ace Hardware stores in eight western U.S. states. Also, URM Stores Inc., of Spokane, has given Quantum preferred-vendor status for lighting upgrades in 100-plus supermarkets that the big wholesale grocery cooperative serves.


Also this year, Quantum began retrofitting high-efficiency lighting in commercial buildings that Kiemle & Hagood Co., of Spokane, manages.


Because of energy savings already gained in those structures as a result of the retrofittings, Gordon Hester, Kiemle & Hagoods assistant director of management services, says, I would hope to do every single building we manage. The company manages about 70 buildings, nearly all of which are in the Spokane area.


During the past six months, through that relationship Quantum has retrofitted lighting in the 16-story U.S. Bank Building and the 14-story Washington Mutual Financial Center, both in downtown Spokane; the Freeway Center, in Spokane Valley; and the Riverpoint One Building, just east of downtown.


So far, every project has met or exceeded the energy savings we expected, Hester says.


The return on investment for each project is on pace to range between 35 percent and 45 percent a year, Hester says. Thus, for every $1,000 a building owner spends on a lighting-retrofit project, a customer can expect to cut its annual lighting costs by $350 to $450. If that rate of electricity savings is sustained, within two to three years, a building owner will have saved enough to pay for a retrofit project completely, he says.


Those numbers are consistent with the results typically experienced by Quantum customers, says Michael Mathis, the companys sales manager.


Generally speaking, our projects pay for themselves within three years, he says.


Quantum currently has 19 employees, nine of whom work in the companys Spokane office, which is located at 1817 E. Springfield. Its other employees work in satellite offices in Anchorage, Alaska; Boise, Idaho; and Sacramento, Calif.


When researching whether a building owner would benefit from retrofitting lighting, Quantum evaluates a structures lighting system, determines what retrofit or replacement parts would best boost efficiency, and estimates what annual savings would be if the buildings lighting were retrofitted or replaced. Quantum oversees each project that moves forward, but contracts out to electrical subcontractors the electrical work.


Quantum chooses from a host of types of fluorescent bulbs, reflector shields, and ballasts and uses products made by a variety of manufacturers.


A typical interior fluorescent fixture is two feet wide and four feet long and uses two to four bulbs. In many cases, conventional fluorescent bulbs, which are 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and ballasts can be replaced with ballast-bulb combinations that include fewer bulbs that have smaller diameters, but produce as much, if not more, light and use less energy, Filer says.


The new ballasts include electronic components that are more efficient than those in the old-generation parts, and the bulbs have more potent chemical compounds.


Also, the company installs energy-saving reflectors, which are the shiny, white metal components above light fixtures that help to direct light better.


To retrofit or replace lighting in a building typically costs 75 cents to $1.25 per square foot of floor space, Mathis says. Using such figures, retrofitting lighting in a 10,000-square-foot office building typically would cost between $7,500 and $12,500.


In addition to pitching energy savings as a reason to retrofit, Mathis says Quantum works to stay current on rebate programs that power companies offer to businesses as incentives for taking energy-saving measures. Such programs, he says, will pay for a large portion of such a project, but Mathis says, 99 percent of people dont know the utility will pay them to save energy.


Also, he says, such improvements qualify as purchases that can be depreciated at a faster rate than before due to tax benefits in the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002. Through that act, a business can write off as depreciation 60 percent of the cost of a lighting retrofit in the year the project was completed. That deduction will apply to all projects completed before Sept. 11, 2004, Mathis says.