Lightnews Vol 13.pdf - Philips Lighting Controls

Light in actionOne horse race when itcomes to lighting controlKranji as the only racecourse in Singapore means the stakes for the operators are high toprovide the latest results and odds to visitors and broadcast viewers alike. When the SingaporeTurf Club released the tender to upgrade the racecourse facility, Philips Dynalite had to crackthe whip to meet the challenges of a field of competitors.Monitoring the energyconsumption of each lightingtower was a fundamental elementof the tender as the STC strivesto improve the facility’s overallenergy efficiency.“”Horse racing in Singapore has along history, dating back to colonial timeswith the first race taking place in 1843.The Singapore Turf Club (STC), managedby the Malaysian Racing Association hasbeen in its current location at Kranji since1999. The original facilities and track designwere hailed as state-of-the-art at the timeand received a recognition award fromthe Philadelphia Chapter of the AmericanInstitute of Architects, for its ‘fun andwhimsical’ design.The racecourse complex comprises sixtracks. The principal track is used forlong- and short-course races over 2,000mor 1,800m. A 1,500m polytrack permits allweatherracing and four tracks are availablefor training purposes. The visitors’ areas andcorporate facilities are equally impressive.When commissioned in 2000, the coursewas floodlit with more than 40 lightingtowers, fitted with 1,800 Watt ArenaVisionluminaires from Philips.In 2007, the Singapore government releaseda tender to upgrade the infrastructurefor the racecourse. A key criteria was themonitoring and control of the lightingtowers, to ensure that the lighting towerswere secure and available for training andrace meetings at all times. With just a shorttime frame in which to respond, ControlTech Asia, the long standing Philips DynaliteVAR for Singapore, was able to designa lighting control system based on coreproducts and technical expertise.To maximise security, STC required tripleredundancy to ensure that the lights wouldremain on when needed. In addition, theflood-lighting system needed to have bothtimed and manual control capabilities foronsite and remote operation. Monitoringthe energy consumption of each lightingtower was a fundamental element of thetender as the STC strives to improve thefacility’s overall energy efficiency.“The overall system has three networksto provide the level of redundancy thatSTC required,” said Ray Bond, BusinessDevelopment Manager, SouthEast Asia forPhilips Dynalite. “Normally, we would runthe controllers over a single bus network,but in this case there were two existingnetworks wired underground. The thirdlayer needed to sit above the original twoon a wireless network, giving three streamsof data to guarantee the system wouldremain on when needed.”“We used an intelligent building as ananalogy when designing the system. Usuallythere would be one control room, butin this case, there are three, giving 200%redundancy! Making sure only one was inoperation and not overridden by one of12 | Lightnews Vol 13