Independent Study Confirms PoE Texas’ Denton DBI Costs Less Than Traditional AC
Resorts World and its electrical contractor have finally answered the most important question facing PoE lighting and automation. Can a Power Over Ethernet lighting system compete in price with what gets installed today?
They performed an exhaustive, electrical contractor-led analysis of the total costs comparing a managed lighting system using PoE to an unmanaged traditional AC lighting installation, and the results stunned them.
Denton DBI Savings
Their analysis says yes, a PoE Texas-managed solution costs less than traditional AC even without controls. They were so impressed with the results, they agreed to make them public.
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The Comparison
As the basis for comparison, the light control system for the AC solution included standard dimming while the PoE solution included customized group controls provided by Electronic Theater Control (ETC) touchscreens. Conspicuously excluded from the estimated results is the specified ETC which would have increased the AC overall price by $100,000.
In the cost analysis, the quote comparison shows an overall reduction in material cost when utilizing PoE, due to:
- Exclusion of steel conduit
- Reduced copper wire
- Fewer circuit panels
Equivalent Performance
In the technical analysis, PoE outperformed the comparable High-Voltage system in lumen to power efficiency due to PoE’s control fidelity. At a lower price point PoE allows the end user to easily manage each fixture individually or control them collectively in a group setting with precision not cost-effectively available for a basic AC solution.
In summary,the traditional AC hardware and material priced at $129,000 vs. PoE at $97,000. The cost of labor increases when installing PoE because each fixture requires individual addressing and programming, resulting in higher labor costs.
This raised the labor cost for PoE to $104,000, while traditional AC was at $99,000. Regardless, in total, the final cost for a lighting installation using Traditional AC Power came to $274,984, while PoE only cost $240,656.58.
Concluding the Study
In the final analysis, the integration of PoE controls far exceeded the basic savings as it met theatrical standards without any additional expense resulting in savings far beyond 15%. With a true control system comparison, PoE Texas saves more than $134,000. This study highlights that PoE, and PoE Texas’ Denton Digital Building Intelligence (DBI) in particular, delivers a significant cost advantage with built-in controls, material cost reduction, automation capabilities, and lack of integration expenses over even basic traditional AC systems.
Resorts World discovered they could have a fully managed lighting system for less than the cost of their basic lighting package.
