Costco Wholesale were in need of their internal and external lighting to be upgraded with a wireless smart system, allowing them to save energy and most importantly money! Across the UK, MD Govier was assigned to removing and installing new pendants which are synced to a system operating in the Netherlands that control when the lights are in action. Not only were we required to carry out the work that we do best, but communication was key!
Costco were unsatisfied with the costs of their current lighting systems and were looking for ways to reduce their bills. Many of the warehouses operate throughout the night if not on a weekly basis, on the irregular. Therefore, the lighting to many departments is permanently in use. However, there are different needs from when the shop floor is fully open to its members at peak times to when the warehouse staff are working on lower numbers throughout the night with no members of the public.
They chose to employ a system from Nedap in the Netherlands, which can detect the natural light levels that are coming through into the warehouse and through this detection they can automatically control the dimming of the lights to what level of illumination is required. All lights communicate wirelessly with each other and this information is fed back to the Netherlands.
To install this system, we needed to firstly replace every light within the warehouse at high level during overnight shifts; this could be anywhere between 280 to 450 light fittings. Each of the new lights needed to be fitted with a Nedap node to enable to the wireless communication. All lighting control panels were disconnected and isolated accordingly, as these panels were integrated into the existing system, which we were making redundant. Internal and external photo sensors and containment were installed at high level as well as lighting overrides and designated controller cabinets with data points. The data point was routed from their IT server room and connected into a patch panel, the power supplies for the override and the cabinet were taken from the local distribution board. We then supported the commissioning process with a Nedap rep from the Netherlands.
