Xicato's Eco-Friendly, Smart Lighting Helps to Preserve the Environment in France

Challenge: Build a Sustainable Industrial Business Park with Limited Environmental Impact

The core development principles of the 450 acres of the Grand Sud Logistique business park was to construct an environmentally friendly industrial park to complement and preserve the surrounding wetlands and pastures. Numerous measures were taken to avoid, limit or compensate for ecological and landscape impacts to safeguard the environment. In line with this green agenda, the company hired to design the space, Design Lighting Systems (DLS), chose Xicato’s leading wireless Bluetooth Controls with their flexibility to suit the needs of the customer and ensure that the warehouse lighting was delivered in an eco-friendly manner, whilst adhering to stringent local work-place lighting regulations.

Solution: Eco-Friendly Lighting that Sense Motion and Light Levels

Xicato Smart Lighting Controls were installed within fourteen warehouses, each covering 5,000m2 (53,800 sq. feet). Close to 1,000 Bluetooth-enabled luminaires are controlled by 328 Xicato Intelligent Sensors (XIS) to ensure that lighting is delivered to each individual corridor within a warehouse only when the presence of personnel or vehicles is detected.

“The Xicato intelligent sensors were just the solution we were searching for to provide smart control over an extensive amount of space. It was amazing how much coverage each sensor, with the Xicato relay nodes, delivered along with the many functionalities. Additionally, the cost savings were a substantial added benefit.” - David Stanojevic, Sales Manager, Design Lighting Systems

XIS was the right solution for the environment providing a multi-functional, closed-loop 5-in-1 sensor that turn environments such as warehouses at the Grand Sud Logistique business park into smart buildings. The XIS is programmed to sense for the following attributes:

Temperature
Humidity
Motion
Lux
Acceleration

The XIS continuously measures the surrounding lux level including natural light and transmits the information to each individual lighting node. The lighting nodes automatically adjust their intensities to ensure a pre-programmed lux level is maintained in line with working regulations. As a result, artificial lighting levels are adjusted as appropriate, taking into account natural light levels to maintain regulatory requirements. When no presence is detected by XIS in a focused area of the warehouse, the lighting adjusts to low levels in order to save energy. The nature of each building in terms of size and density of large metal shelving units filled with goods, coupled with requirements for positioning of luminaires and sensor equipment made this a challenging environment for Bluetooth wireless signals. Xicato, in conjunction with DLS, deployed 143 dedicated Xicato Relay Nodes (XRN) throughout the site in order to create a robust wireless mesh infrastructure, thereby ensuring uninterrupted system availability and control message delivery.

Customized Functionality

An override function is also available, in line with client requirements, whereby a switch located at the building entrance is used to provide two hours of full illumination in order to carry out maintenance or cleaning tasks. The switch may be re-activated at any time during this period to extend the maintenance and/or cleaning illumination time.

The XIS’ multi-functional, closed-loop 5-in-1 sensor capabilities easily allow the warehouse needs to be met in future by taking advantage of all of its sensors without any additional hardware upgrade cost to the customer. These capabilities are further augmented by OTA (over the air) upgrade ability of Xicato Controls devices to meet further customizations and a path to Bluetooth mesh standards and evolution of its protocol capabilities.

Result: Sustainable Environment with Efficient, Smart Lighting

The business park owners and DLS were extremely pleased with the final results of the project in a multitude of ways – energy savings translated into cost savings and eco-friendly lighting with diverse application uses for the future. Most importantly, the transformation of the warehouses into smart spaces complemented the preservation of the surrounding environment of wooded areas, pastures and wetlands that is the mission of the owners of the business park.

Lighting Design: Design Lighting Systems

Xicato Products: Controls, Intelligent Sensors and Relay Nodes