Glamox scores two more wind-related offshore lighting wins

The sales tide continues to rise for Glamox AS, as the Norwegian LED lighting vendor has racked up two more marine vessel deals — one with a company that surveys seabeds and the other with a Chinese shipbuilder with an offshore wind link.

Glamox is furnishing eight ships for PGS ASA, an Oslo-based geophysics firm that gathers data on marine subsurfaces to help energy and mineral companies as well as offshore wind enterprises better locate drilling, exploration, and turbine operations.

The retrofit project is scheduled to run through 2025, replacing fluorescent lighting with around 2,500 exterior and interior LED luminaires on each of the eight vessels.

“The retrofit of these vessels with energy-efficient LED luminaires should enable us to save energy used for lighting by as much as 60%,” said Olaf Brunstad, vice president of fleet management for PGS. “This initiative contributes to our goal to reduce our emissions by 75% and achieve a net-zero carbon footprint by 2050.”

In another sizeable contract, Glamox is supplying approximately 6,600 luminaires to Chinese shipbuilder Yantai CIMC Raffles Offshore Limited to illuminate two new vessels used for installing massive offshore wind turbines. 

Yantai is building the so-called WTIVs (wind turbine installation vessels) for Oslo-based offshore wind construction company Havfram Wind. Havfram plans to put them into operation in 2026. Each will be able to hoist rotor blades of over 300 meters (about 1,000 feet) using a 3,200-tonne capacity (3,527 tons) and will be able to carry foundation piles weighing 3,000 tonnes (3,307 tons).

All that heft requires illumination. Glamox said it is supplying LED luminaires for all parts of the vessels including crew quarters, corridors, stairwells, ladders, platforms, gangways, and work areas. Products include floodlights, searchlights, emergency and explosion-proof lighting, navigation and signal lights, ceiling lights, linear luminaires, downlights, and compact bed lights. Each vessel will install around 3,300 luminaires.

“For successful offshore operations, you need lighting that you can depend on,” said Havfram Wind CEO Even Larsen. “We wanted lighting that’s been proven in the toughest offshore environments. Lighting that’s of good quality and highly energy efficient supports our strategy to be a leader in providing the lowest emissions per megawatt of installed wind.”

Glamox declined to reveal the financial value of either contract.

The Marine, Offshore & Wind (MOW) sector showed particularly strong sales growth for Glamox in its second quarter, as revenues in the division surged by 39.4%. While the the company’s landlubbing Professional Building Solutions (PBS) division remains the larger of the two groups, its growth rate was a lower 10.2%. Overall sales for the quarter rose 17.2%, but a weak Norwegian krone combined with factors including high interest rates paid to bondholders turned an operating profit gain into a net loss for the Oslo lighting company (for details, see the article linked in this paragraph).

Other recent MOW wins for Glamox have included an offshore electrical substation deal with Norwegian engineering and construction firm Aibel and a ferry lighting pact with Sweden’s Stena Line.

MARK HALPER is a contributing editor for LEDs Magazine, and an energy, technology, and business journalist ([email protected]).