World Port Development November/December 201328

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The LED lighting revolution

In April 2013, Philips, the world’s biggestlighting maker, reported a 38% jump infirst quarter LED sales from a year earlier.LED lights are becoming the norm forreplacing the old light bulb in householdsbut how does it fare in the ports industry?Sheila Moloney reports…

e have covered the use of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) lights in the ports industry in World Port

Development on several occasions but whatwe didn’t anticipate was how fast the marketwould respond to the use of LED lights compared to the traditional 1000W highpressure sodium lights (HPS). LED lights arepricey but the long-life and energy-efficientbulbs are an excellent alternative to HPS lights.Apart from consuming a lot of electricity, thedrawbacks of using HPS lights are obvious - they have poor durability, create a lot oflight pollution and generate light of poorcolour for night vision. In 2012, Sean Pearce,CEO at Yilport explained at the Ports & theEnvironment seminar that the Turkish terminaloperator implemented a terminal lightingproject and compared the use of more traditional terminal lighting (including HPS andSON-T) with LED lights.Their conclusionwas that the 1000W SON-T lamp (18 lux)consumed around 336.000 kWh of electricitya year and produced 201 tonnes of CO2 ayear of emissions. Compared to the new[LED] system – by using an eco-friendly 210WUCD lamp (25 lux) - they experienced areduction of 80% in lighting costs by using‘only’ 67.200 kWh of electricity a year producing 40 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.What was very interesting with this examplewas that the payback period on the investmentof transforming all of their lighting to LEDlights was only 15 months.With such enormoussavings on both electricity and emissions it isobvious that terminal operators are lookingat transforming their terminals to the use ofLED lights and manufacturers are reportingsome interesting news stories.

One of these success stories comes fromUS-based Musco Lighting, the company thatprovided DP World with their ‘GreenGeneration Lighting’ solution at the Jebel AliPort Terminal 1 in the United Arab Emirates.With more than 175 hectares of cargomovement and storage, and operations takingplace 24/7, DP World and its Jebel Ali PortTerminal 1 were facing the kind of lightingchallenges most corporations can barely

imagine. Energy consumption was very highwhile spill light and glare were excessive.Replacing lamp outages and maintaining thevast lighting equipment was expensive andtime consuming. DP World needed to reducecosts, lessen its environmental impact, andrefocus its belief in green technology, withoutsacrificing the uniform, consistent light levelsnecessary to maintain a safe and efficientoperation.The previous lighting system createdhot spots, dark spots, and potential safetyissues for workers. By using the existing 30-50m tall poles, Musco created a lightingsolution that saved DP World money in theinitial stages as well as in the long term. Muscoengineers designed, fabricated, and built acustom hangar bracket that allowed the newLED lights to be installed on the existing poles’original design.The custom bracket maintainedthe flexibility of the lighting equipment andthe ability to raise and lower it as needed formaintenance.The custom-designed systemutilised existing poles for capital cost savings,and with over 230 poles used in the finallighting design, executing this customisedapproach and integrating the new lightinginto the facility’s existing infrastructure wascritical in keeping the cost of the retrofit lowfor DP World. Musco improved the overalluniformity, or smoothness, of lighting to allowbetter visibility throughout the port and createa safer work environment during crucial twilight hours.The system also provides theability to evenly reduce light levels whenoperations are inactive or in areas used onlyfor the storage of containers, creating additionalsavings for the port.The newly installed lights

also reduce glare and redirect previously spilledlight onto the working surface.Throughputthe entire installation process the Jebel AliPort Terminal 1 stayed operational.Accordingto Musco, the terminal used 3935 kW ofelectricity before the green solution wasimplemented and afterwards it witnessed adrop of electricity usage to 1121 kW – a savings of 2814 kW (72%) or USD1.356 million a year in energy costs savings.

The use of LED lights is not restricted to theterminal yard alone. Operators have also discovered that changing from ‘yellow’ to‘white’ lights on container handling equipment– and in particular on container cranes andRTGs – provide not only the crane driverswith excellent vision during operations butalso leads to increases in both safety andproductivity in operations as it improves theperception of distance and therefore the speedof approach to the loading and unloadingarea. In October,TCV Stevedoring Company,a container terminal in Valencia [Spain]belonging to Grup TCB, reinforced its commitment to its environmental policy bypurchasing and implementing the first STSSuper Post Panamax crane in the world, litentirely with LED technology.This solutionwas developed and provided by Ingeniería deAplicaciones Energéticas (EDAE).The newSuper Post Panamax equipment is lit by LEDfloodlights at several power ratings up to400W, located at various heights up to 68m,depending on specific lighting needs. It alsohas 10 and 22 watt LED tubes with vibration

W

Saving money

The LED lightingrevolution

LED floodlights

Photo courtesy of Musco Lighting

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damping technology for transit areas andtechnical rooms on the crane. Each HighFlux LED floodlight, with various differentpower ratings, replaces one of the 250, 400or 1000W High Pressure Sodium Vapourlamps of the original project, providing thelighting levels required at the terminal,improving light uniformity and achievingenergy savings of 66% with respect to theoriginal design. After pre-testing and thedecision to adopt this solution for the STScrane under construction,TCV has also builtit into other STS cranes, in their spreadersup to 40m, to improve the availability of container operating capacity, and to avoid thedrawbacks and cost overruns caused by

premature failure of the 1000W bulbs due tovibration during movement of the vehicle carrying the container. So far TCV has installed58 units of 400W floodlights, as well as otherswith lower ratings of 210W and 180W.These58 floodlights provide annual savings in CO2

emissions of 94 tonnes.At the beginning ofDecember, news arrived that US-basedPhoenix Products Company provided theirmost innovative LED fixtures to illuminateRubber Tyre Gantry (RTG) cranes for terminalsin Houston,Texas, USA as well as Lomé,Togoin Western Africa.The company supplied itsModCom 300W LED floodlights for eightRTGs now operating at the Barbours CutTerminal at the Port of Houston. Each girder

requires only three ModCom Hi’s with customised spot optics while two of the sameModCom Hi’s are mounted on the trolley.The Port of Houston Authority also took advantage of Phoenix’s recently introducedEcoMod LED floodlights, engineered specificallyfor the demands of port handling equipment.A second shipment of three RTG cranes willbe delivered to the Bayport Terminal in early2014 and will be among the first RTGs operating with EcoMod fixtures installed.Halfway around the world, Lomé ContainerTerminal in Lomé,Togo will receive twelve newRTG cranes illuminated with the EcoModfloodlights. On each crane, there will be twelveEcoMod 150W’s installed – four on eachgirder and four on the trolley. In addition tothe durability, reduced maintenance andrepairability of Phoenix designs, Lomé ContainerTerminal expects reduced energy usage overthe previously used 400W HID fixtures.“Weare proud to partner with the Port of HoustonAuthority and Lomé Container Terminal tosupport their pursuit of operational efficiencyand greater sustainability. LED technology hasopened up a lot of doors for terminal facilitieslike these and allowed them to maximisetheir resources,” said Ryan Hertel, GlobalManager for Ports & Terminals at Phoenix.The company already installed a completecrane LED package on Ship-to-Shore cranesand automatic stacking cranes supplied byZPMC at the Long Beach Container Terminaland at the Port of Miami they installed walkwaylighting and floodlighting on several STScranes. LED floodlighting was also installedon the automatic stacking cranes supplied byKonecranes at the Global Container Terminaland at the DP World London Gateway terminal[these cranes were supplied by Kalmar]. In2013, Phoenix introduced several new fixturesdesigned for container and bulk handlingequipment.They are all engineered for thecorrosive marine environment and can easilybe incorporated into any port facility.Amongthese are the EcoMod Series, which is amodular LED floodlight delivering up to25,000 lumens.The EcoMod Series can beused on STS cranes, RTG cranes,ASCs, andvarious other container handling equipment.The LEDLT Series is an LED linear tube lightthat offers up to 50% energy savings whencompared to 17W linear fluorescents.TheLEDLT provides an efficient, instant-onoption for port walkways, while the AreisSeries is best suited for straddle carriers and portable maintenance lights offering acompact design and numerous optical packages.

TCV Stevedoring Company, acontainer terminal in Valencia

[Spain] belonging to Grup TCB,purchased and implemented the

first STS Super Post Panamaxcrane in the world, entirely lit

with LED technology

The Port of Houston Authoritytook advantage of Phoenix’s

recently introduced EcoMod LED floodlights