Lighting & Lighting Controls

Lighting is one of the largest and most controllable line items on a facility's electric bill, and one of the few upgrades that pays for itself while improving how a space looks, feels, and functions. Fromm has been designing, supplying, and retrofitting lighting systems across eastern Pennsylvania for more than 100 years. Because we are a distributor with access to every major lighting and controls manufacturer, we specify what fits your application rather than what fits one catalog.

Most of that work is commercial and industrial: plant floors, warehouses, schools, hospitals, offices, and municipal projects, ranging from a single high bay swap to a ground-up campus design with networked controls. We also design and supply residential lighting, most often on custom home builds and renovations, and we partner with homebuilders to develop curated lighting packages that hold consistent across a community.

Whatever the project type, design, product selection, energy audits, and utility rebate work happen under one roof.

Contact a lighting specialist.

Lighting Design

Our lighting design team manages large and small projects across industrial, commercial, and residential applications. We can design your lighting and lighting control systems from the ground up, helping you build a budget, select fixtures and components, assemble lighting packages, and bundle the package to deliver the best overall value.

We are equally comfortable running a photometric analysis on an industrial plant floor and recommending fixture styles for a new restaurant or a downtown nightclub. That range comes from a team that works across every market we serve, backed by the product breadth of a full-line electrical distributor.

Common projects include functional lighting for manufacturing plants, warehouses, office buildings, schools and college campuses, hospitals, government facilities, parking garages, and municipal streets, plus style-driven lighting for retail, restaurants, hospitality, and custom homes.

On the residential side, our lighting design team works with homeowners on custom builds and renovations and with homebuilders on curated lighting packages that standardize selections across a community while leaving room for buyer upgrades.

Explore Fromm Lighting Design

Lighting Controls

Controls are where lighting stops being a fixed utility and becomes a system you manage. Occupancy sensing, daylight harvesting, scheduling, dimming, and zone control routinely cut lighting energy use well beyond what the fixture upgrade alone delivers, and current energy codes increasingly require continuous dimming and daylight-responsive control.

Control needs range widely. It can be as straightforward as washing the side of a building with color in the evening, or as involved as moving light and atmospheric effects like fog and haze for architectural and entertainment applications. It can also mean a networked system tying every fixture in a multi-building campus into one dashboard.

We stock the latest products from Lutron, Acuity, LEDVANCE, and other leading control manufacturers, and we support your system from initial design and programming through training and ongoing maintenance. When controls are specified correctly and carry the right listings, they also strengthen your utility rebate position, which our rebate specialist can quantify before you commit.

Explore Fromm Lighting Design

LED Lighting Retrofits

We work with customers every day to upgrade the lighting in existing facilities and properties. The reasons vary: energy and maintenance savings, worker health and safety, light quality, code compliance, or simply the fact that the technology in the ceiling is two generations behind what is available now.

Retrofits are usually the fastest payback project in a facility. Fewer watts, longer service life, fewer ladder trips, and better light on the work surface, all without touching the building envelope or the production schedule.

Fromm stocks and supplies the newest LED and energy-efficient lamps, fixtures, and controls. We also provide energy consumption audits and analysis and photometric studies, so the retrofit is designed around measured conditions rather than assumptions.

Learn More

Commercial Lighting Audits

Lighting can account for a significant share of a business's annual electrical costs. Our lighting audit specialists survey your facility and calculate the payback that energy-efficient lighting would actually deliver in your building, on your operating schedule, at your utility rate.

An audit includes documenting your existing lighting systems, counting the total number and type of fixtures, and determining how many hours those systems run in a normal workweek. The deliverable is a calculation of current energy usage alongside the specific solutions we can provide to make the facility more efficient, with projected savings and payback period.

There is no obligation attached to a baseline facility survey. Most customers use it as a planning document whether or not they move forward immediately.

Contact our team to schedule a baseline facility survey

Utility Rebates and Act 129 Incentives

Pennsylvania's regional electric providers offer meaningful rebates when businesses purchase and install energy-efficient lighting and controls. Under Act 129, utilities including Met-Ed, PPL, and PECO run prescriptive and custom incentive programs that can offset a substantial share of a qualifying lighting project. Act 129 entered a new five-year phase in 2026, which means program specifics, incentive levels, and qualifying measures have shifted.

Understanding which program applies, which fixtures and controls qualify, and how to file the paperwork correctly is where most projects stall.

Fromm employs a full-time utility rebate specialist dedicated to this work. Our specialist runs the energy savings and rebate analysis to determine the payback on your energy-efficient lighting purchase, completes the necessary paperwork, and works directly with your local utility provider on your behalf. Pre-approval requirements and submission deadlines are handled on our side, not yours.

The savings are often large enough to change the project math entirely. Contact us to find out what your facility qualifies for.

Learn More

What's Next in Lighting Technology

Some of the most significant advances in building technology are happening in lighting. Our team tracks these developments closely and has access to manufacturer training and technical information as soon as it is released.

Technologies our lighting team is working with and selling today:

• Networked lighting controls connecting fixtures, sensors, switches, and controllers into a single managed system with centralized multi-site visibility. These are now the dominant approach in commercial controls and frequently carry the strongest rebate value.
• Power over Ethernet lighting, where a single cable delivers both power and data to fixtures, sensors, and switches, simplifying installation and reducing labor and low-voltage risk.
• Wireless and Bluetooth mesh systems with full connectivity, allowing intensity and color changes from a mobile device without pulling new control wiring.
• Tunable white and human-centric lighting that shifts color temperature across the day to support alertness, comfort, and circadian health in offices, schools, and healthcare settings.
• Building system integration over BACnet and similar protocols, tying lighting into HVAC, access control, and building automation platforms for coordinated energy strategy and predictive maintenance.
• Analytics and fault detection, using fixture-level data to flag outages, failing drivers, and maintenance needs before anyone reports a dark aisle.
• Municipal smart street lighting that adjusts intensity based on learned usage patterns to reduce energy consumption.
• Li-Fi and light-based data transmission, still early but moving into secure commercial and government environments where light-based links offer an alternative to radio-frequency networks.

If you're evaluating any of these for a project, our team can walk you through what is proven, what is still emerging, and what your utility will pay for.

Frequently Asked Lighting Questions

How much can an LED lighting retrofit save?

Savings depend on what you're replacing, how many hours the lighting runs, and your utility rate. Facilities moving from legacy fluorescent, metal halide, or high-pressure sodium to LED commonly see substantial reductions in lighting energy use, with additional savings from reduced lamp and ballast maintenance. A lighting audit produces the actual number for your building rather than an industry average.

What is a photometric analysis?

A photometric analysis models how light will distribute across a space before anything is installed. It accounts for fixture placement, mounting height, room surfaces, and fixture output to predict light levels on the work plane. It's how we confirm a design will meet the required foot-candle levels without over-lighting and overspending.

Do lighting controls qualify for utility rebates in Pennsylvania?

Often yes. Controls that carry the appropriate listings can qualify on their own and can increase the incentive value of the fixture project they're paired with. Program specifics vary by utility and change between Act 129 phases, which is why we handle the analysis and filing for you.

How long does a lighting audit take?

Most baseline facility surveys are completed in a single visit for small and mid-sized facilities. Larger multi-building campuses take longer. The deliverable typically follows within a couple of weeks.

Does Fromm handle installation?

Fromm designs, specifies, and supplies the lighting and controls, and manages the rebate process. Installation is performed by your electrical contractor.

What areas does Fromm serve?

Fromm operates locations across eastern Pennsylvania and supplies customers throughout the tri-state area from our eastern Pennsylvania Central Distribution Center.