LumiGrow has partnered with Sparkfund to offer financing for horticultural lighting upgrades with no upfront cost. LumiGrow integrated the SparkFund calculator into its website to let potential customers calculate and visualize savings and positive cash flow from its LED-based horticultural lighting and make a payment plan that will work for the customer. SparkFund is an energy efficiency finance company that offers a sliding scale funding option for energy efficiency projects in the $10,000 to $1,000,000 range that promise to pay for themselves in terms of savings.
LumiGrow is partnering with SparkFund to fund and install new horticultural lighting systems for 42 customer in the next year. LumiGrow’s Pro Series lights are cost effective LED-based luminaires for horticulture that provide more red and blue light than the most powerful conventional lighting systems for better plant growth. For example, the Pro 325 offers red and blue PAR equivalent to that of a 1000 Watt HID light while consuming 70 percent less energy, and LumiGrow’s Pro 650 light provides twice the red and blue spectral output a 1000 Watt HID light while it consumes 40% less energy.
Sustainable Local Foods, an expanding hydroponic produce grower decided to take advantage of the no-money-down financing for upgrading its lighting system to meet the demands of Kroger’s grocery store.
Under SparkFund’s financing terms, Sustainable Local Foods pays no net cost for their new LED-based horticultural lights from LumiGrow. According to LumiGrow and SparkFund, the utility bill and maintenance savings are greater than the monthly payments for the system.
Sustainable Local Foods installed LumiGrow’s Pro™ LED lighting system that delivers spectral control, optimizes plant growth, and reduces operating costs by about $170,000 annually.
“This project would not have happened without this payment plan,” said Jim Bloom, Chief Business Developer at Sustainable Local Foods. “We are thrilled to expand our new business with the most effective and efficient agricultural lights out there. SparkFund’s intuitive and streamlined process and LumiGrow’s efficient technology made this project possible.”
“Integrating the SparkFund custom payment plan slider into our website was straightforward and simple,” stated Caroline Wells, COO at LumiGrow. “We love being able help customers like Sustainable Local Foods harness the growing capacity of energy-efficient lighting without the upfront investment.”
