Slimline LED Bulkhead Surface Mounted from WE-EF

New luminaire helps University of Queensland (UQ)
towards carbon neutral target

WE-EF has developed a superior luminaire for high durability that can be used in a variety of exterior applications, and not just by its own standards.

When the sustainability team from the University of Queensland (UQ) was seeking an energy-efficient and cost-effective car park lighting solution, they reviewed all available products and found the WE-EF BUC230 surface-mounted bulkhead could not be matched.

BUC230 LED Surface-Mounted Luminaire

Developed originally for mining applications where space is restricted, the luminaire features an ultra-shallow housing height of 79mm which, incidentally, also makes the BUC230 well suited to undercover car park areas.

The final design was the result of considerable research and development with the aim of finding a replacement for the university's existing luminaire featuring 150-watt high pressure sodium lamps - around 700 fittings in total.

Roland Poon, an engineer from WE-EF's Queensland sales partner Raylinc Lighting, was able to demonstrate that the very compact (320x210x79mm), high performing BUC230 LED would produce the same or better lighting performance with considerable energy savings. In fact, the BUC240 24W luminaire was able to provide superior performance at just one-sixth of the energy consumption of the incumbent luminaire.

The cumulative savings from 700 luminaires are equivalent in energy terms to about 270,000kWh per year and cost savings of $30,000.

Projects such as this will contribute to UQ achieving its aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2015. And when compact dimensions and high performance are required, light emitting diode (LED) technology provides a natural solution for many lighting upgrades.

The BUC230 features WE-EF LED modules that are utilised in sets of three 2W LEDs. The luminaire can accommodate up to six of these modules, which allows project-specific lens configuration and symmetric square/bi-symmetric light distribution patterns. A combination of street optics and area optics produce two further distribution options - square [Q60] and bi-symmetric [B65] distributions. The square [Q60] distribution containing six LED modules has proved itself very useful for the car park application at UQ.

All up the BUC230 can offer seven distribution options and the fitting is supplied with a 10-year LED warranty.

The LED modules also use a patented WE-EF One LED Concept (OLC®) technology. OLC combines the multi-layer lighting approach with modular PCB/LED/lens engineering and thereby balances the need for safety with visual comfort and energy savings.

Impact and vandal-resistant, the luminaire also features advanced thermal management which protects LEDs while optimising lumens output. The range is 1200lm - 3500lm with the same light output for both 3000K and 4000K.

In the case of the UQ car park project, a light colour temperature of 4000K produced a dramatically improved light quality and visual appeal.

Ian Cerfontyne, Managing Director of WE-EF LIGHTING, said: "The most amazing achievement of the project was the one for one replacement of existing 150W HPS fittings with 24W LED fittings.

"The result is an attractive white light and reduced maintenance cost, along with remarkable energy savings. Because of the optical control of our 'butterfly' lenses the glare was reduced as well, which the before and after shots of the UQ car park don't capture."

According to Raylinc Lighting's Mark Hoppe it has "created so many new opportunities throughout the campus indoor and outdoor".

Aside from the technical aspects, from a purely aesthetic view the difference is remarkable in UQ's new lighting installation - one that will provide a long-term solution that the institution can rely upon.