CASE STUDY: LED FLOODLIGHT REPLACEMENT : Reading Abbey Rugby Club
Abbey Rugby club are a community rugby club in Reading on the Berkshire/Oxfordshire border founded in 1956. They run 4 men’s teams and a couple of ladies’ teams as well.
With a thriving mini & junior section, the club is popular with social players from all around the area and is a hive of activity pretty much every day of the week so keeping running costs to a minimum was paramount alongside keeping the training facilities a safe and practicable environment.
THE PROJECT: FLOODLIGHT LED CONVERSION
- With the increase of playing teams throughout the club, evening training went from only 2 nights a week for the men’s teams to a minimum of 5 nights a week.
- Floodlights usage went from roughly 12 hours a month to over 80 hours a month and yet the light quality wasn’t as effective as it needed to be.
- They had 8 poles with 2 luminaires on each housing 2 X 1000W Metal Halide lamps drawing a total of 64,000W when all the lights were on. At the time electricity was charged at £0.20/kWh so usage equated to £12.80 an hour which was roughly £1024.00.
- All this was before you consider other electricity costs such as clubhouse & changing rooms, cellar, boiler, and car parks. So, the conversion of incandescent floodlights to LED floodlights was not only a quick win but a long-term sustainable investment
THE SOLUTION:
- After surveying the site, we recommended using only one LED per pole with a Symmetrical beam angle casting light in the same way as the 2 luminaires had done previously.
- We opted for 220W Philips Coreline Tempo Asymmetrical LED floodlight, 4000K with a lumen output of 26.000 which is as close to daylight as you could get ideal for training but most importantly playing evening matches.
- Although the energy consumption will be reduced from 64/kWh down to 1.76/kWh the lumen output increased by 60%, therefore, giving a better light output for a fraction of the energy used.
- With an initial investment of £4235 (£529.29ea) it was all about the payback period and how much energy savings could be generated from the LED flood light replacement.
THE RESULT:
- The club has seen immediate results, with a dramatic improvement in the light quality of the floodlights even during training sessions when they were dimmed to 80%.
- The switch to LED lighting has reduced the club’s floodlighting costs by over 90% with a reduction in hourly use down from 64/kWh to a mere 1.76/kWh. Equating to a whopping £995.84 reduction in the energy consumed by the floodlights each month.
- From their initial investment of £4235 the payback period was just over 4 months, for a seasonal sport like rugby this was important to claw back some costs in the same season’s financials.
- Luckily the work was undertaken free of charge by qualified electricians in the club but the plug-and-play system made it easy to replace the old conventional lamps without the need to re-wire or change the fixtures.
The club have seen immediate results, with a dramatic improvement in the light quality and has helped increase numbers to evening training. The switch to LED lighting has reduced the club’s lighting running costs by over 90%.
Training in the evenings under the new lights has created a huge buzz amongst the team and increased the numbers to training on most evenings, which in turn has upped the performances on the field.