A.C Lighting Supply Largest Solar LED Installation for 25 Bank Street Building

12th October 2004

A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division have supplied and programmed fixtures for the largest installation of Solar LED equipment in the UK.

The project, designed by LightMatters, involved providing an architectural lighting and control solution for illuminating the crown of Wall Street broker Lehman Bros' European headquarters in the prestigious Canary Wharf area of Central London. The 32-storey building, known as 'HQ2', is located amongst some of the capital's tallest buildings and the world's leading financial institutions.

To obtain the luminaires for the cutting-edge lighting project, LightMatters consulted A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division, who used their in-depth knowledge of LED fixtures to source the solution used. The whole project was managed by Canary Wharf Contractors Ltd.

The lighting system consists of 152 no. IP67 rated Solar M200B RGB LED luminaries mounted on floor-standing pillars at 1m and high level all the way round the perimeter of the building, between the inner wall and outer glass shell of the 32nd storey. The fixtures each provide an asymmetric, wall-washing 8 x 25° beam to illuminate the crown with a combined total of 5472 LEDs. Despite the vast roof area being lit (3,500 sq m), the average daily running cost that can be achieved is low due to the comparatively efficient power consumption of LEDS.

The complex lighting design involved illuminating the building in Green and Blue between sunset and sunrise, with the possibility of a different colour-mixing sequence at set intervals each day. This required a system which, in addition to providing DMX control of the fixtures' RGB power drivers and an astronomical clock, could act as an intelligent user-interface for the building's owners to manually select alternate lighting sequences to those already pre-programmed for any given day or time.

A.C. Special Projects used their knowledge of DMX architainment lighting systems to specify an ETC Unison control system. The unit was chosen primarily for its simple 10-button recall station and easy to use LCD touch-screen. The system also utilises DMX distribution tools from A.C.'s exclusive Chroma-Q range.

LightMatters Director, Graham Large, commented: "A.C. Lighting's Special Projects team were proactive throughout the pre-trials, installation and commissioning. The Solar fittings and ETC control system have worked well together to produce the effects we were seeking."

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