Luminaires that make a difference – Gripen Wheels' switch to LED

TEXT: MAGNUS CARLSSON
PHOTOS: ANNA SIGVARDSSON HÖGBORG

If you have 33,000 square meters of space, the choice of luminaires plays a major role. Gripen Wheels recently installed 700 Swedish-made luminaires from Solar Light, and now enjoys both a better working environment and lower operating costs.

Gripen Wheels is one of the market's largest players when it comes to tires for industrial operations. The company has a turnover of approx. SEK 600 million and employs 43 people.

Gripen Wheels distributes tires all over Europe from its 33,000 square meter warehouse in Jönköping. Here they decided some time ago to do a redesign of their lighting. In the ceiling were old T8 tubes, which not only meant high energy consumption – the fluorescent tubes have also been discontinued and will eventually no longer be available for purchase.

- Anyone who has fluorescent lamps in the ceiling will eventually be forced to make this change. But we decided to do it preventively instead. It is an investment that pays off the faster you make it, and you also get better lighting at the premises, says Martin Svensson, purchasing manager at Gripen Wheels.

Swedish-made luminaires

Solar was asked to supply luminaires for the project, and Solar Light presented the lighting calculation and energy-saving calculation.

- When we visited the premises, we found that it is a huge area, but with relatively few forklifts driving around. This means that a large part of the lighting is constantly lit – completely unnecessarily. So, then we started calculating what energy savings could be made with good control, says Richard Dahlberg, who was responsible for the project on behalf of Solar Light.

The recommendation fell on the Swedish-made luminaire ONE23 with a built-in control system. At Gripen Wheels, they chose to use Active Ahead and On/Off control, which means that the different sections of the lighting take care of themselves and are activated or switched off depending on where in the room there is activity. A total of 700 luminaires were installed at the premises.

- This has been a big project, but it is also a good example of what a great luminaire ONE23 is. It is an affordable luminaire that can easily be shaped according to the needs of the facility, says Richard Dahlberg.

- For example, we can paint it in specific colours and adapt the control, quick wiring and length of the luminaire. The luminaire is made in Sweden and the sheet metal is struck in Småland, so these are high-quality products.

Flexible installation

Something that stood out in this project was that Gripen Wheels knew what they wanted to achieve – but not who was going to do the work. Via Richard Dahlberg at Solar Light, they were put in touch with the local installation company Hults Elektriska, which was given the assignment.

- They have done a fantastic job. We had no opportunity to stop the business to do this, so some areas they could only work on after 5 p.m. But they solved it brilliantly, says Martin Svensson at Gripen Wheels.

When the installation is now complete, Gripen Wheels' new lighting is expected to reduce electricity consumption by 145,000 kWh per year, which also means that annual CO2 emissions will be reduced by almost 15,000 kg per year. But it is not only the savings that are a big gain, says Martin Svensson:

- There is a big difference in the quality of the lighting. You can see so much better, and it is more comfortable to work in. What you feel now is: why didn't we do this earlier?