Gemma Lighting’s LED products chosen as part of Hull Barrier refurbishment

LED lighting solutions from Portsmouth-based specialist Gemma Lighting LTD were chosen as part of the multi-million pound refurbishment of the River Hull tidal barrier.

Situated at the meeting point of the Hull and Humber rivers, the tidal barrier has been protecting the city from floods since 1980, and in 2010 the barrier undertook a £10million refurbishment being led by Qualter Hall, one of the UK’s leading multi-discipline Engineering specialists.

The barrier’s lighting was situated 30 metres in the air, difficult to access and even more difficult to maintain, and part of the refurbishment needed the poor visibility of the dim yellow lighting to be improved upon.

Gemma Lighting’s LED products were chosen to replace the 400W SON and 1kW Halogen floodlights that were being used on the barrier initially, with Spitfire 72 LED Flood lights chosen for this project.

The natural appearance and high visual acuity meant the Spitfire was the ideal solution for Qualter Hall, and with the high life span of up to 100,000 hours the LED lighting will not need replacing for another decade at least.

Compared to traditional lighting sources, the new LED products provided by Gemma Lighting saved £63,000 in initial cost, energy bills and maintenance, giving the user a payback period of just 18 months.

The energy efficient nature of the Spitfire, like all Gemma products, meant 25 tonnes of carbon were also saved annually.

Both Qualter Hall and Gemma Lighting were pleased with the result of the improvements, with the new LED products achieving the targets set out at the beginning of the project, improving the aesthetics of the barrier to bring it in line with more modern designs.

Steve Caddick of Qualter Hall said of the project: “It was very important that the new lights were low maintenance and looked good. Gemma Lighting’s response to our specification was very diligent and we are pleased to be saving energy through using their LED lights on our renovations.”