Lunera is borrowing a page from California's fast-growing rooftop solar industry. On Thursday, it plans to unveil a lease-to-purchase program that lets commercial building owners retrofit their lighting for no money down. The lease is believed to be the first in the commercial lighting sector.

Lunera offers a five-year lease-to-purchase agreement with fixed monthly payments. The tenant or building owner owns the lighting fixtures, which means they, not Lunera, reap the benefits of tax depreciation.

Lunera sees a strong market for its lease in cities along the East and West coasts, where electricity rates are high. Lunera installs LED lights to make the building more green, which is in the process of doing a major retrofit on a 30-year-old building in Santa Clara.

California's booming rooftop solar industry has enjoyed tremendous growth in recent years -- in both commercial and residential buildings -- because of the popularity of solar leases. SolarCity, based in Foster City, pioneered the concept in 2008 and now has 15,000 customers in 11 states. The lease makes up the bulk of SolarCity's business: 2,385 of its customers in California chose the lease in 2010, while just 247 paid for their solar systems in cash, according to the company.

San Jose-based SunPower and Citi announced a new $105 million fund for residential solar lease projects last week that allows SunPower to expand its lease to several other states, including Arizona, Colorado, New York and Massachusetts.

Lunera was founded in late 2007 and is backed by venture capital firms The Westley Group, Kohlberg Ventures, Navitas Capital and RCG Ventures LLC. The company has installations at several of Silicon Valley's leading companies, including eBay and SAP.