Clevertronics’ L10 Lithium Range of emergency and exit light fittings have recently been installed throughout Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium, resulting in a drastic reduction in ongoing energy and maintenance costs.

Located in Melbourne’s Docklands, Etihad Stadium is a $460 million, multi-purpose facility designed to cater for major sporting and entertainment events and has attracted crowds in excess of 60,000 patrons.

Emergency lighting and exit signage are essential to ensure safe egress by building occupants when the normal lighting fails, including during a fire or other crisis situation.

The emergency power supply in emergency light fittings, in the event of a power failure, is by way of batteries contained in each exit sign and emergency light fitting. Until recently, Lead Acid, Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) or Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) offered the only solution for emergency lighting batteries. However, these have serious shortcomings.

Clevertronics’ L10 Lithium range has addressed these shortcomings and when compared to traditional emergency and exit light fitting batteries, offers:

• twice the battery life
• over 80% less costs on maintenance
• increased energy efficiency
• an environmentally responsible option

Etihad Facility Manager, Honeywell, is delighted with the selection of the Clevertronics L10 range of fittings and Honeywell Victoria TAM Operations Manager, Matthew Parisi, estimates that the stadium will have ongoing annual savings of around $129,000 PA in maintenance and electricity costs as opposed to if they had maintained their previous NiCd emergency lighting fittings, with a greater yearly saving over the first 7 years of operation.

“The Clevertronics L10 range was the ideal solution and was selected as it offered the lowest cost maintenance available with fewer battery replacements and provided reduced impact to stadium operations, with greater reliability due to fewer man-hours dedicated to maintenance and replacements,” Matthew says.

“The use of L10 Lithium batteries is the way of the future and I believe the move away from NiCd batteries will be quite swift as building owners and facility managers become aware of the numerous advantages that lithium batteries offer. The added advantage of low environmental impact and also less waste through longer replacement intervals also makes it a far more sustainable technology compared to existing practice. Having no memory effect and being smaller in physical size are also advantageous qualities that attracted us to the product.”

Through switching from NiCad fittings to the Zoneworks L10 range, we estimate that the total energy and maintenance costs will drop from $1,083,830 to $178,867 over a seven year period, which is an 83.5% saving. The switch will also ensure an energy saving of approximately 70%, equating to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 932 tonnes over the same seven year period, which is quite remarkable.

“It really is an obvious choice when it comes to emergency lighting – lithium batteries are the way of the future and offer a plethora of benefits for building owners and operators,” Matthew adds.