Light as a Service: Pioneering lighting refurbishment

The com­pa­ny REMONDIS shows that per­fect­ly illu­mi­nat­ed halls and a simul­ta­ne­ous reduc­tion in ener­gy con­sump­tion are by no means a con­tra­dic­tion in terms. At its Bad Essen site, the fam­i­ly-run com­pa­ny, which is active world­wide in the fields of recy­cling, water man­age­ment as well as munic­i­pal and indus­tri­al ser­vices, has con­vert­ed the exist­ing met­al vapor lamps in favor of mod­ern, intel­li­gent­ly con­trolled LED lights. In this con­text, the light­ing refur­bish­ment in Deutsche Licht­mi­ete’s Light as a Ser­vice con­cept is set­ting the trend for the entire group.

“Before the retro­fit, there were only two states: light on or light off. Most of the time, the lights were on, from 5 a.m. until clos­ing time, even if there was no one in some work areas or day­light would have been sufficient.”

- Heike Rede­nius, Branch Man­ag­er in Bad Essen

Nev­er­the­less: the light­ing sit­u­a­tion was not real­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry at any time of the day in the three halls of the prop­er­ty, which has been owned by the REMONDIS Group since spring 2020. “The light­ing was based on out­dat­ed met­al halide lamps that had not orig­i­nal­ly been installed for our fields of activ­i­ty,” explained the branch man­ag­er. In the halls, two immense bal­ing press­es are used to process paper and plas­tic waste. There are also exten­sive work­shop and stor­age areas. Heavy truck traf­fic is the order of the day.

Accord­ing­ly, clean and good illu­mi­na­tion of dri­ve­ways and assem­bly areas is essen­tial. “The work­place direc­tive pro­vid­ed for an improve­ment in illu­mi­na­tion. At the same time, we no longer want­ed to con­sume ener­gy unnec­es­sar­i­ly,” says Rede­nius. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resource con­ser­va­tion are key pil­lars of the com­pa­ny’s phi­los­o­phy, and not just in waste and resid­ual mate­r­i­al han­dling. “Our own actions are also con­stant­ly under scruti­ny,” says the branch man­ag­er. “This starts with reg­u­lar train­ing of truck dri­vers in fuel-effi­cient dri­ving and extends to ener­gy-effi­cient man­age­ment of the real estate used by the com­pa­ny.” Light­ing plays an impor­tant role in this context.

More light, lower costs

The change in tech­nol­o­gy in Bad Essen clear­ly illus­trates the poten­tial of a light­ing refur­bish­ment: before the retro­fit, 400-watt met­al halide lamps pro­vid­ed light more bad­ly than good. The new, mod­ern light­ing con­cept is based on con­cept light® 198 watt LED high-bay lumi­naires and a small num­ber of con­cept light® III 340 LED high-bay lumi­naires, result­ing in per­fect illu­mi­na­tion of all areas and a sig­nif­i­cant increase in work­place safe­ty. “All spec­i­fi­ca­tions of the work­place direc­tive are more than met,” says Rede­nius. The LED lumi­naires are prod­ucts man­u­fac­tured by Deutsche Licht­mi­ete in Ger­many. Heike Rede­nius appre­ci­ates the fact that they are even repairable and can be recy­cled. “Attrib­ut­es that fit well with us,” says the branch manager.

Lighting control enables additional savings

Of note is the new light­ing sys­tem’s intel­li­gent, radio-based NEDAP con­trol sys­tem, which not only offers every con­ve­nience, but also the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sav­ing an addi­tion­al 30 per­cent or so of ener­gy. In this way, the light com­ing in through the sky­lights can be used in a tar­get­ed man­ner. That is, depend­ing on the inci­dence of light from out­side, only as much arti­fi­cial light is con­tributed as is need­ed for the desired illu­mi­nance. The radio con­trol sys­tem from NEDAP also pro­vides REMONDIS with an uncom­pli­cat­ed plat­form for mon­i­tor­ing data and records, for exam­ple, actu­al switch-on times and con­sump­tion. In addi­tion, a new group switch­ing sys­tem was installed so that the light­ing in indi­vid­ual areas can be flex­i­bly influ­enced man­u­al­ly as required.

Lighting refurbishment leading the way

The retro­fit, includ­ing com­plete rewiring, was com­plet­ed in just two weeks. All steps, from the light­ing design and instal­la­tion of the lumi­naires to the pro­gram­ming of the light­ing con­trol sys­tem, were in the hands of Deutsche Licht­mi­ete, which coor­di­nat­ed close­ly with the staff on site so as not to dis­rupt ongo­ing oper­a­tions. “The plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion were very pro­fes­sion­al, there were no restric­tions what­so­ev­er,” con­firms Redenius.

For the branch man­ag­er, the fact that the com­pa­ny ben­e­fits from Deutsche Licht­mi­ete’s all-round care­free pack­age with no invest­ment what­so­ev­er is also ground­break­ing for oth­er loca­tions of the Group, for which Bad Essen serves as a role mod­el. Instead, the com­pa­ny pays a month­ly rental rate that, thanks to the con­sid­er­able reduc­tion in ener­gy con­sump­tion, is sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the pre­vi­ous total light­ing costs.