Somar International Ltd has been awarded the United Kingdom Warehouse Association 2007 Technology and Innovation of the Year Award sponsored by Redirack, for its Powerboss Eluma intelligent lighting solution.

The warehouse and supply chain sector is a high cost/low margin industry where market pressures require businesses to continually assess their operating practices and increasingly, their resultant environmental impact.

Electrical energy costs are a principle overhead; few businesses recognise that warehouse lighting typically accounts for between 50% and 75% of those electrical costs. In certain cases high-bay lighting accounts for 95% of the electrical costs of a storage/logistics facility.

Typically, warehouse lighting comprises of high intensity discharge (HID - metal halide or high-pressure sodium) technology. These are traditional and very inefficient technologies, which not only account for a majority of the electrical costs, but present various operational problems. These lights take 7 to 10 minutes to switch on; hence tend to be left on continually and cannot be dimmed if ambient light is present. Owing to the nature of the bulbs, these fittings have substantial maintenance costs and create high levels of glare and shadowing, which causes great discomfort to fork lift and other operators. It is also worth noting that one 400W HID light fitting running 24/7 is responsible for the generation of 1.7 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year; a typical warehouse having 100s if not 1000s of such fittings.

Powerboss Eluma is an innovative patented technology, which out performs other solutions and typically saves 60% to 80% of lighting costs in an industrial or warehouse scenario.

When 1 x HID fitting is replaced by 1 x Powerboss Eluma there is an instant saving of 50%. Additional savings are delivered by a sensor built into each fitting which not only automatically switches the fittings off/on when no operatives are present, but also reacts to ambient daylight by dimming the Eluma; maintaining light levels whilst saving energy. These controls can be commissioned from floor level.

When an Eluma has switched off owing to non-occupancy, it senses an operator when he/she reaches the adjacent fitting and switches on immediately; hence no user is ever moving into darkness. As there is a sensor in each fitting the lighting levels and non-occupancy controls are on a fitting-by-fitting basis and savings are optimised.

The lamps used with Eluma are guaranteed for 3 years / 20,000 hours; hence in a scenario where maintenance costs can be prohibitive, we are delivering a virtually maintenance free solution.

The daylight-like light delivered by Eluma also reduces glare, shadowing and scalloping significantly improving operator working conditions.

In summary, Powerboss Eluma is typically delivering 60% to 80% savings of the lighting costs within a scenario where lighting accounts for 50% to 75% of the electrical costs of that warehouse.

This is all at the same time as maintaining or improving light levels, reducing maintenance costs and improving the operators' working conditions.

The reduced energy usage delivers substantial and quantifiable environmental benefits.