Why Lighting Upgrades Are the Smartest Move You Haven’t Made Yet

There’s a quiet reckoning happening in buildings across America. Facility directors, design leads and ops managers are facing a trifecta of pressure: utility bills that keep creeping up, mandates that feel like a moving target and aging infrastructure that’s buckling under modern expectations. And while plenty of conversations swirl around new builds, one of the smartest—and most overlooked—moves in the resilience playbook?

Retrofitting your lighting and controls.

Because lighting isn’t just a line item—it’s a performance multiplier. Quietly powerful, surprisingly transformative and often the fastest path to savings.

You know this building: constructed in the 1980s, still running T12 fluorescents, and maybe some outdated metal halide high bays in the back. The bones are solid, but the systems are stretched thin. What used to “just work” is now breaking down, costing more to fix and delivering less value.

And the truth is, those old systems just aren’t built to play in today’s energy-efficient sandbox. Federal and state guidelines have tightened. ESG goals are trickling down from executive teams. Tenants expect more.

It’s a lot.

The Real Cost of Waiting

At Current, we hear it all the time: “I’ll wait until the next capital cycle.” Or, “If it ain’t broke ...” But let’s call that what it is: false economy. Keeping outdated lighting in place can cost more than you think.

Some legacy systems can leave you in a constant loop of replacement—lamps dimming well before end-of-life, ballasts failing outright, yellowed lenses that spoil light quality. And that’s not only materials, but more labor, ladder time, permits and scheduling headaches that could be wiped clean with a single retrofit decision.

Also consider how an old 4-lamp T12 fluorescent fixture consumes around 160 watts. Swap in a modern LED troffer, and you could be looking at less than half the energy for equal or better output. Multiply that by every hallway, breakroom, office and aisle, and the savings potential accelerates.

Meanwhile, if you want to dim lights based on occupancy or integrate with your HVAC system for smarter demand-side load management, then ballasts from 2004 are not your best friends. Legacy systems weren’t designed to communicate, by and large. They’re islands, essentially, and when you try to bring them into today’s smart building ecosystem, you’re stuck patching workarounds (or worse, scrapping half of what you already have).

What a Retrofit Really Delivers

So, what do you actually get from a lighting and controls retrofit?

1. Energy savings you can measure.

Energy efficiency is not an abstract ideal—the numbers show that a 40% to 70% cut in energy consumption is achievable for many facilities, just by swapping out legacy lighting.

Take Southern Components. This Charleston, South Carolina, manufacturer updated their 9,500-square-foot facility using Columbia Lighting’s LCAT LED troffers, and the results were immediate. A 72% drop in lighting energy use. That’s $4,200 off their annual utility bill—not to mention a tidy $3,200 rebate from their utility thanks to the LCAT’s DLC Premium qualification (a widely recognized benchmark for energy-efficient commercial lighting).

2. Emergency resilience.

When things go sideways, you need to know your emergency systems aren’t just there, but ready.

That’s where offerings like Current’s DUAL-LITE^® EVC exit and emergency lighting combos step up. These aren’t your old-school incandescent exit signs that flicker and fail when you need them most. Instead, they’re backed by self-diagnostics that run constant checks on battery health, lamp function and charger status.

Southern Components made the switch to Dual-Lite EVC combos as part of their retrofit. The result was no more nuisance maintenance calls for burned-out bulbs or faulty batteries. Most importantly, the facility is compliant, code-ready and confidently prepared for the unexpected.

3. Smarter building performance.

This is where lighting steps out of the utility zone and starts acting like infrastructure.

Lighting controls are the connective tissue that transforms your network of lamps and fixtures into a responsive, scalable, intelligent platform. You’re not ripping open ceilings or pulling wire across the building, either. Everything—controllers, sensors, stations—can communicate via wireless protocols. Today’s LED products are natively designed to speak the same language as modern controls, which means precise dimming and color tuning, for example, without fighting every signal you send their way.

Need to bring lights up gradually on an overcast day? That’s easy to do. Have conference rooms that sit empty half the week? NX Lighting Controls—as one example of an intelligent, distributed system—can sense occupancy and adjust accordingly.

For new builds, modular controls architecture makes it much simpler to tailor performance zone by zone. And it’s a win for retrofits, especially in large commercial spaces.

It’s all about creating a building that adapts—where lighting, sensors and control logic harmonize—so you can stop managing systems and start managing outcomes.

4. Tenant comfort and satisfaction.

This is where modern LED systems pull ahead, not just in output, but in atmosphere. Lighting isn’t just functional anymore; it’s experiential. And technologies like SpectraSync™—Current’s tunable white lighting platform—are built with that in mind. SpectraSync integrates seamlessly within the NX controls framework to allow smooth, intuitive color temperature adjustment throughout the day.

In the morning, a cool, energizing 5000K to keep folks sharp and alert. During the afternoon slump, dial it back to a softer, warmer 3000K to reduce eye strain and help ease the evening transition. Rather than locking in one look, it’s like adjusting your lighting to match your building’s circadian rhythm.

And in today’s competitive real estate and talent markets, that kind of thoughtful design can pay dividends in tenants’ satisfaction.

5. Minimal disruption, maximum payoff.

No facility director is itching to rip open ceilings or shut down spaces just to upgrade the lighting. And that’s the beauty of a well-designed retrofit—you don’t have to.

Type A LED tubes, which work directly with existing fluorescent ballasts, offer the least disruptive path to energy-efficient lighting. It’s a simple lamp swap requiring no rewiring or new drivers.

Need more control or planning a deeper modernization? Type C LED tubes give you next-level flexibility by using dedicated external drivers to offer superior dimming and compatibility with smart controls like NX. This is ideal for future-ready buildings looking to align with networked lighting or advanced energy code requirements.

And for facilities ready to refresh their look—without a full fixture overhaul—products like the Columbia LSRK LED Retrofit Kit still have a place. They’re built to drop into existing strip light housings without demolition or rewiring. Just a few fasteners and a simple connection.

That’s the beauty of LED retrofits: you’ve got options. From quick wins to fully integrated solutions, these upgrades deliver efficiency, longevity and adaptability—without gutting your infrastructure. Low touch. High impact. And often, the smartest strategic move you can make.

Why Now?

Retrofitting for resilience is no longer just “a good idea,” but business critical, and lighting is one of the few systems that touches every square foot of your facility, and every person in it. It’s the infrastructure hiding in plain sight.

Whether you're trying to cut costs, hit energy goals, improve the everyday experience or just make your buildings smarter, it’s the lever you can pull right now.

Talk to a reputable consultant or bring in a manufacturer who’s done this before, let them walk your space, and you might be surprised just how simple and transformative a retrofit can be.