THE CHALLENGE

DC Electrical, a commercial and industrial electrical contractor, had been appointed in 2020 by Woodside to carry out a review and upgrade of its lighting – internal and external. To handle the track and field lighting, DC Electrical called in the experts. Us.

The Metal Halide system at Woodside was presenting a lot of issues.

• It consumed a huge amount of electricity compared to what an LED system would. So, it was placing an unnecessary burden on their annual budget – especially with energy prices in the UK going up year on year.
• It wasn’t reliable and needed a lot of maintenance. This meant Woodside was spending a massive amount on new bulbs and having them replaced. Even without factoring any other things in like any downtime caused, this couldn’t go on.
• As well as costs, their Metal Halide system wasn’t doing their ‘green’ credentials any favours. They were wasting a lot of energy. Metal Halide lights contain mercury and other hazardous chemicals and are harsher on the environment compared to LED lights. On a local level, the stadium’s Metal Halide system was causing a lot of light pollution for their residential neighbours too.
• Unlike LED solutions, Metal Halide systems aren’t easily adaptable or versatile and can cause problems when things like new regulations are introduced. As Woodside needed to maintain its competition certification with bodies such as TrackMark, England Athletics, and the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) this was massively important.

The other main challenge we faced was timing. The new system had to be fully installed and running by the end of January 2021. We’d been appointed to take on the project in December 2020. So, taking into account the holiday season, this gave us just around a month to get everything done… during a global pandemic.

THE SOLUTION

With the clock ticking, we quickly dispatched a Design and Engineering team to Woodside. They assessed what was already at the stadium and what needed to be achieved. Then they came up with several lighting design solutions to meet Woodside’s objectives – a free service we offer all our clients. We presented these different designs to DC Electrical and Woodside.

When it came to speed of installation, objectives, and budget our preferred solution stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Thanks to the existing infrastructure at Woodside there was no need to start everything from scratch. We could use the existing masts and energy supply at the stadium and retrofit a combination of our Modus R and S luminaires. See below for more details.

The result? An energy-efficient, reliable, more environmentally friendly, adaptable, compliant, and future-proofed lighting system. Everything the client had asked for– delivered on time and budget.