Genemuiden: site lighting at a manufacturing plant

A production site that keeps going after dark

Genemuiden, on the Zwarte Water, is a manufacturing town: production halls, storage and transport sit close together. At a manufacturing plant there, lorries enter and leave the yard during the dark hours to load, unload and turn. Forklifts cross the traffic routes and staff walk between the hall and the car park.

A yard like this makes two demands: enough, even light for logistics and safety, and as little light as possible over the site boundary.

What was done

The yard received new LED luminaires on columns, aimed at the traffic routes, the loading zone and the parking bays, with optics that keep the beam on the site. The result is functional light: drivers see the edge of the loading dock, the forklift driver sees the pedestrian, and the neighbours and the road receive no spill light or glare. The project was carried out by an installer, not by Lichtplein; we describe it as a reference for a comparable set-up with our range.

Which lighting levels to work to

The guide for outdoor workplaces is the European standard EN 12464-2. Rough indicative values, check the exact requirements for your situation in the standard:

• Traffic routes and lorry parking: 10 to 20 lux.
• Loading and unloading areas: 20 to 50 lux, with 50 lux where work is continuous.
• Passages and steps at the hall: around 50 lux.

Uniformity matters just as much (minimum divided by average illuminance). The standard sets a minimum per task, roughly between 0.25 and 0.40, so a driver does not pass from light into dark. You achieve that with the right column spacing, not with more watts.

Limiting glare towards the surroundings

Unlike indoors, where the UGR value describes glare, outdoors it is mainly the direction of the light that counts. Three choices keep the light on the site:

• Mounting angle 0°. A street luminaire with its glass horizontal emits almost nothing above the horizon.
• Directed optics. A street optic (type II or III) for traffic routes, a narrower beam for loading bays.
• Colour temperature 3000 to 4000 K. Warmer light is perceived as less intrusive; 4000 K gives good contrast at the workplace.

How to build this with the Lichtplein range

A comparable yard is set up with three series:

• VIA for traffic routes and parking bays: street luminaires from 25 to 100 W, IP66, with 10 kV surge protection, tiltable on a 60 mm spigot. With DALI-2 and D4i you control each column; with a DIP switch you set the output and with an AstroDIM driver a night setting.
• FLUX for the loading zone: floodlights from 100 to 400 W, for example 240 W with 40,800 lumen at 150 lm/W, IP66 and IK10, on a bracket on the same column.
• TURRIS as the carrier: conical steel columns of 4 or 6 metres, hot-dip galvanised or powder coated in RAL 9005, with a door opening that takes the NEXUS column cut-out.

Column height, spacing and planning

On a yard with lorry traffic, 6 metres is a common mounting height: high enough to light over a trailer, low enough to keep the beam on the site. As a rule of thumb, column spacing for street luminaires is three to four times the mounting height, depending on the optic and the required uniformity; shorter at loading bays. The lighting calculation determines the final spacing. Steel columns have a lead time of 3 to 5 weeks; luminaires ship within 5 working days from European stock.

Frequently asked questions