LED Lighting Upgrades for Victorian Businesses: How the Discounts Work

Fluorescent tubes have a way of becoming invisible. They keep working, badly, for years: one end greying, a flicker at start up, a hum over the desks that nobody mentions any more. If you run a shop, workshop, or office in Frankston or on the Peninsula, there is a Victorian government program that will pay down part of the cost of replacing that lighting.

The lighting discounts are for businesses, not homes

Victorian Energy Upgrades is a state government program. The Essential Services Commission, which regulates it, describes its job as regulating participants and products in the program to deliver energy efficiency improvements which are more affordable for consumers, and reduce their long term energy consumption.

Households get plenty from the program, but not lighting. The household page lists heating and cooling, hot water, and appliances such as televisions and clothes dryers. Lighting sits on a separate page headed commercial and industrial.

So if you have been waiting for a discount to redo the downlights at home, this is not it. If you own or lease business premises, keep reading.

What qualifies, and what has already ended

The program is specific about eligibility, and it has narrowed.

• All Victorian businesses can receive discounts for outdoor, commercial and industrial lighting upgrades.
• Businesses may be eligible for indoor lighting upgrades if their existing lights are fluorescent.
• Incentives to replace other types of lighting have now ended.
• All local councils and road management authorities can receive discounts for street lighting upgrades.
• Victoria's largest energy users are not eligible for lighting upgrades unless they opt in to the program.

Read the second and third points together, because that is where most small businesses land. Indoor fluorescent is in. Indoor lighting that is already LED, or halogen, or something else, is not.

Outdoor is broader. The program gives carparks and sportsgrounds as examples of outdoor lighting, and its own worked examples start from metal halide lamps.

How the discount reaches you

You do not apply to the government yourself. The upgrade is delivered through an accredited provider, and the program publishes the list of them.

Three things about that list are worth knowing before you start ringing around:

• Accredited providers often work with installers who are not listed on the registry, so the electrician you already use may still be able to do the work.
• Not all accredited providers currently offer lighting upgrades.
• Providers choose when and where they undertake upgrades, so what is available varies by area and over time.

The program describes the discount on the household side as applied to the quote, rather than something you claim back as a rebate later. Ask any provider to show you the discount on the quote, in writing, before you agree to anything.

What the changeover actually looks like

Swapping fluorescent for LED is rarely a straight change of tubes.

Old fluorescent fittings run through a ballast, and much of the value in an upgrade comes from taking the whole luminaire out rather than pushing an LED tube into a fitting built for something else. That is the direction the program's own examples point: fluorescent tubes replaced with LED luminaires, and metal halide lamps replaced with LED high bays.

Expect the job to involve:

• A proper count and a look at what is up there, including fitting type and mounting height.
• Fewer, better placed fittings in a lot of cases, rather than one for one replacement.
• Access equipment where ceilings are high, which usually drives the scheduling more than the electrical work does.
• Circuits checked while the fittings are down, because the wiring above a long serving fluorescent tray is often as old as the fitting.

Emergency and exit lighting is a separate system. Ask whether it is included in any quote rather than assuming it is.

Who is allowed to do the work

This is licensed work, and Energy Safe Victoria is direct about it: it is illegal and potentially fatal for unlicensed and unqualified people to undertake any electrical or gasfitting work.

You should also end up with paperwork. Energy Safe Victoria requires a Certificate of Electrical Safety to be issued for all electrical installation work, under the Electricity Safety Act 1998 and the Electricity Safety (General) Regulations 2019.

What to do next

Walk the premises and note what type of lights you actually have, because eligibility turns on that one fact. Fluorescent indoors, or anything at all outdoors, is worth a conversation.

From there, have a licensed electrician look at the fittings and the circuits feeding them, and ask any accredited provider to put the discount on the quote in writing before the work is booked.