Tag Archive for: Lights

Grow Lights For Schools & Local Clubs

Grow Lights For Schools & Local Clubs: SGL is introducing a brand new grow lighting product line which makes grow lights possible for sports clubs who never had the budget before.

With the SGL Basic line they aim to enable grass quality improvements in different layers and levels of sport. This will lead to better and safer playing surfaces throughout the year for lower professional sports leagues and training grounds, but also schools and local sports clubs.

Grow Lights For Schools & Local Clubs

SGL have taken different measures in the engineering, production and shipping process to reduce costs to a minimum, while still delivering high quality and durable products. SGL product developer Kristel Meijer: “For the Basic line we designed every part from scratch, in order to optimise the use of materials, increase efficiency and keep the SGL quality demands. We use these same parts for all products within the product range, which makes production more efficient and cheaper. In addition, the products are shipped to the customer in an ‘Ikea style’ self-assembly package. This reduces shipping space by 90%, meaning an extensive reduction of shipping costs.”

The first lighting system in the Basic line is the BU50. Its seven HPS fixtures promote photosynthesis by applying PAR light and additional heat, which enables and reinforces grass growth on all sports playing surfaces under all circumstances. The BU50 treats a surface of 50 square meters and recovers grass after games and events, to ensure pitch quality throughout the year regardless of climate conditions.

Grow Lights For Schools & Local Clubs

In due course, more products within the Basic line will follow. SGL founder Nico van Vuuren: “Almost 20 years ago we introduced grow lights to the world of football, which then started a revolution in premier league pitches. Now, we can offer this opportunity to clubs throughout all levels of sport and we hope to do the same for them.”

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Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena

Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena: Although LED technology isn’t new, there haven’t been any sports surfaces grown on a large scale successfully with the help of LED light yet. After extensive research, development and testing, Allianz Arena are convinced they will now be the first, by using the SGL LED grow lighting system.

Allianz Arena have purchased four LED systems from SGL, with integrated and fully automatic Infrared Radiation and irrigation, which together cover the entire width of the pitch. Since 2009 Allianz Arena had successfully been using the conventional HPS* lighting units from SGL. Their ambitious sustainability goals were the reason to look into possibilities for a more sustainable grow lighting system. Jürgen Muth, Managing Director Allianz Arena: “In order to get and keep a perfect pitch with a very good natural grass quality, the use of technical support has already been essential to us for many years. SGL and their light technology have been a very important and helpful partner since 2009. Now we climb a new step and look forward to the new LED Lighting Units coming from SGL. After extensive tests we are confident to get good results with these additional lights on our pitch.“

Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena

SGL founder Nico van Vuuren explains the challenge of creating top quality growth with LED: “LED is a fast developing technology and a lot of research is still being done in regards to its use for plant growth. There are many choices to be made in order to get the same quality at lower costs as the HPS armatures. Apart from looking at the energy efficiency side of the story, it’s crucial to look at the plant physiological side, practical side and investment costs too. LED has many advantages, such as the flexibility in light spectrum and the energy efficiency, but also some challenges such as the high investment costs, the lack of Infrared Radiation and the weight.”

While many know LED for its sustainable character, another unique feature that LED has is the possibility to create a so-called ‘light recipe’. This means you can choose the colours of the light spectrum that are used by the plant for specific purposes. The success of an LED armature greatly depends on the right choice of colours. Van Vuuren: “Grass uses red and blue light for photosynthesis. We’ve extensively tested different red to blue ratios, at our own test centre in the Netherlands and at the Allianz Arena. Based on the test results we’ve created the most efficient light recipe for grass growth, recovery and plant resistance.”

One of the reasons that grass has not yet been grown successfully on a large scale with LED is the lack of additional heat. In Europe grow lights are generally used in winter, in times that there is not enough natural light for optimal plant growth and temperatures are low. This means that, besides additional light, the plant also needs extra heat in order to get quality growth. Van Vuuren: “HPS armatures radiate PAR light and Infrared light to the surface while LED radiates almost no heat to the surface. Therefore we have added Infrared Technology to the LED unit. Naturally, this means you lose some of the energy savings you have obtained by using LED. In order to minimize the extra energy input, our Infrared armatures automatically turn on and off to reach and maintain the ideal temperatures for grass growth. Whether the energy saving is still sufficient for a high ROI, depends on the many growth circumstances that a pitch is subject to. Therefore we always run pitch data through our light source efficiency model to determine which light source is most efficient for the specific playing surface. The Allianz Arena is very dark very early in the year, which means they start their lighting season relatively early when temperatures are still high. Therefore they can save a significant amount of energy, since there’s no infrared required at those times.”

The SGL LED system was tested along with other LED lighting units on the Allianz Arena pitch, to compare efficiency, quality and user friendliness of the system. The SGL LED grow lighting system has been able to tackle the challenges and achieve top quality, with a system that is affordable and easy operable by the grounds teams. The LED lighting units will be used along with the HPS systems, with the goal to phase-wise switch to all LED in the coming years.

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