From lighting up the Olympic opening ceremony to decorating Tower Bridge (and saving 40% on its energy bills in the process), LEDs have certainly made their mark this summer. Now LED specialists Light Planet are raising the bar even further and have developed a new finance initiative to support the implementation of energy efficient lighting technology by businesses and organisations.

Having successfully raised £5 million of venture capital to fund the pay-as-you-save scheme, Light Planet is offering businesses LED lighting solutions worth up to £50,000, giving them the power to reduce their energy bills and carbon footprint without having to produce upfront investment or commit to loan schemes.

As LED technology has matured and the movement towards energy efficiency has intensified, the impressive benefits that LED lighting can deliver are being demonstrated on a wide scale. In addition to the energy and maintenance savings that LEDs bring to almost all kinds of buildings, they offer unique advantages in a number of sectors that range from enhancing patient wellbeing by mimicking daylight in hospitals to protecting precious artworks in galleries.

Despite these wide ranging and significant benefits, it is often difficult to secure upfront investment – particularly for retrofit projects – and this problem has been compounded by the current economic climate. Rather than expecting organisations to bear the brunt of investment, Light Planet will simply recoup 80% of the financial savings achieved as a result of installing this energy efficient technology.

Simon Leggett, Managing Director of Light Planet, commented: “At Light Planet we have complete faith in the potential of LED solutions to deliver both significant energy and monetary savings. Our new finance initiative will give more businesses and organisations access to the many benefits of the technology and encourage increased adoption of energy efficiency measures.”

Despite both government and industry emphasising the role energy efficiency must play in a secure energy future, we have yet to see a finance model that effectively breaks down the barriers to widespread adoption of energy efficient technologies. Light Planet’s initiative is a stark contrast to the government’s approach to encouraging energy efficiency – the Green Deal – which could result in home owners repaying more than double what they borrow and has unsurprisingly been dogged by predictions of low uptake rates.