THE All England Lawn Tennis Club has ditched the metal halide lighting in Centre Court for LED in time for the 2017 championships.

An American sports lighting specialist has installed LED lighting in the retractable roof that covers Wimbledon Centre Court. The move improves the quality of TV broadcasts and, unlike the metal halides, allows instant striking.

‘The purpose of the project was to improve the quality of lighting for broadcasters, whilst simultaneously improving the functionality of the lighting as part of the roof operation,’ AELTC estate director Robert Deatker told Lux.

‘Specifically, this involves reducing the amount of time required by the lights to warm up or cool down, thus making it quicker to resume play,’

The LEDs are a cool 5700K with a CRI of 90. Depending on camera position, the vertical illuminance is 1300–1700 lx and horizontal illuminance is 3000 lx.

The installation is part of growing switch to LED in top-level sports. Many Premier League teams – including Chelsea, Arsenal, Southampton, Bournemouth and Hull City – have already made the switch as have Juventus in Italy and Seville in Spain.

In the US major league baseball teams using solid state lighting including the New York Yankees, the San Diego Padres, Texas Rangers, and Houston Astros.

The lighting firm, working with consultants ME Engineers, created a mockup of the Wimbledon visual setting at its US manufacturing facility to test different CCT and CRI combinations to achieve the optimal combination of direct and indirect light. It also consulted with a UK-based TV crew and professional tennis players to fine-tune the specifications.

The metal halide lighting was installed with the retractable roof in 2009.

The plan will make the company the first grocery retailer in the UK to power all its supermarkets entirely by LED lighting.

Some 250,000 luminaires will be retrofitted in 250 superstores in the next three years in addition to those already installed during the company’s ongoing roll-out.

The new fixtures are part of a deal with Current, GE’s low-energy technology supplier, which will see energy used by the lighting reduced by 58 per cent.

The lighting could also be used as a platform for sensors and beacons, allowing interaction with customers. GE’s Predix Internet-of-Things network can transform the lighting into a smart digital infrastructure that uses data and analytics to optimise energy usage, employee productivity and customer interaction.

Sainsbury’s sustainability chief Paul Crewe told Lux: ‘We’ve almost halved the carbon emissions of our stores since 2005, and in the last 12 months we’ve reduced our electricity use by 11.6 per cent despite growing our operation by 54 per cent’.

‘Our customers expect us to do the right thing on their behalf, and they can be reassured that, day or night, when they visit a Sainsbury’s supermarket, we’ve made a significant in-road into creating a greener supermarket for them.’

The project will support Sainsbury’s Sustainability Plan, which calls for carbon emissions by be cut by 30 per cent from 2005 levels. The target has spurred numerous energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives across its many UK stores, from LED retrofits to solar panels, biomass boilers and ground source heat pumps.  To date, Sainsbury’s has already cut absolute carbon emissions by more than 20 percent and is on track to achieve its 2020 target.

Current is delivering the massive lighting retrofit as a turnkey service, embedding financing with lighting design, product supply, installation and project management services.

LUX VIDEO REPORT: THE BIG SAINSBURY’S LED ROLL-OUT