Brilliant lighting for Sands Centre sports hall

Lighting in the main sports hall of the award-winning Sands Centre in Carlisle has been greatly improved following the installation of long-life, high-output Brilliance light fittings from Chalmor. The centre has also reduced energy and maintenance costs and expects to achieve a payback of around three years.

The Sands Centre was built in 1984 for Carlisle Council and is now operated as a leisure trust by Carlisle Leisure Ltd. In recent years it has greatly expanded the range of activities available to local people and continues to plan new activities.

“One of the areas we wanted to develop was to attract international sporting events to the centre,” explained Recreation Manager Mike James. “However the existing lighting in the main sports hall wasn’t adequate for sports at this level so we explored alternatives and opted for Chalmor’s Brilliance luminaires,” he added.

Brilliance light fittings offer an operating life of 24,000 hours before the 4 x 54W T5 fluorescent lamps need to be replaced – three times as long as the previous lighting in the main hall. This has provided considerable savings on maintenance costs, while the annual electricity consumption has been reduced by over 108,000kWh to give a 74% energy saving.

A total of 56 Brilliance fittings have been installed arranged into two groups to achieve different lighting levels. For routine activities only half the fittings are turned on (alternating to ensure even burning hours), giving light levels of 400 lux, while for major events the light levels are increased to over 820 lux by turning all of the Brilliance fittings on.

“The improved lighting levels have been warmly received by our customers and the fast payback we will achieve from the Brilliance fittings has made this a very worthwhile investment,” Mike James concluded.