Lights at Pentonville Prison retained and upgraded

The cornice lights illuminating the wings at HMP Pentonville prison in London have been retained and upgraded from fluorescent to LED.
The brief to Smart Systems UK from the Prison Service was to threefold: provide energy saving, reduce the need for maintenance as access to the fixtures is difficult and increase the level of light to aid the use of CCTV.
The company removed the two-foot and four-foot T8 fluorescent tubes and associated gear and replaced with a specially-developed linear gear tray using LED PCB modules to match the size of the light’s interior.
By using high performance LED modules and by raising the gear tray to be closer to the existing diffuser, the compnay succeeded in increasing the light level delivered by 40 per cent.
The drivers and emergency control gear were installed on the rear of the new gear tray which was designed to be simply retrofitted into the same fixing centres as the original, so providing a fast install solution.
Smart Systems UK says that by using 50,000 hour rated LED components the maintenance schedule will be considerably improved.
The original load of 200 four-foot 77W T8 fluorescent tubes was 15.5 kilowatts. The new load of LED gear trays at 44W apiece represents a load of 88 kilowatts. There are also considerable embodied carbon savings by remanufacturing the luminaires rather than replacing with new products.
The 200 luminaires including a range of emergency variants, which were also upgraded to LED.
HMP Pentonville, which opened in 1842, is a category B and C prison for both remand and convicted prisoners.
The UK Ministry of Justice says its sustainability strategy focuses on creating a ‘greener justice’ system by reducing carbon emissions, increasing energy efficiency, and promoting a circular economy within the prison estate.
The New Prisons Programme is investing nearly £100 million to build four new prisons designed to be near net-zero carbon, using energy-efficient technologies to operate with 70% less energy than older sites.
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