The LED Light & Power sports lighting design guide for football is available here. LED lighting is the most effective lighting option for football grounds and stadiums. Both sportsmen and spectators benefit from steady illumination, which ensures their enjoyment and safety.
LED lights use 75% less energy than standard lamps and last 10 times longer than fluorescent lamps. This means that you will not need to replace them as often, reducing maintenance time and costs. They are also much smaller and lighter than traditional lamps, so can be installed in more places.
There are three main types of stadium light: downlights, linear arrays and spotlights. Downlights are small, directional bulbs used to fill a room with even light. These are suitable for general purpose lighting tasks within the playing field or venue. Linear arrays are large, horizontal rows of lights that project an unbroken line of light in front of the array. These are used to light up entire fields or large areas of roof structure. Spotlights are small, single lights that produce a very bright beam of light. These are used to highlight specific objects or events within the playing field or venue.
Spotlights are useful for adding atmosphere to games. When played correctly, they can make sure that players and fans feel excited before and during matches.
Football field lights are lights that are used to illuminate a football field. They are typically built at 70 feet high, but may reach up to 250 feet over the pitch in professional stadiums.
The lights are usually made of aluminum or steel and are painted red, white, and blue, the national colors of the United States.
They are used to mark out playing areas and assist referees and umpires in viewing certain events during matches. The lights are also used by players as they move around the field while talking with teammates or coaches, and sometimes even when they have the ball.
The term "football field" is used here to include all forms of athletic fields, such as baseball diamonds, soccer pitches, and indoor arenas where games of footballl are played.
Thus, the height of football field lighting systems should be large enough to provide sufficient light over the entire field.
Research has shown that professional football teams use about 7500 lumens/square foot when playing at night. This means that their football fields are illuminated to between 10,000 and 20,000 candelas per square meter.
LED lights, as opposed to older light sources such as metal halide, are an ideal alternative for volleyball court lighting since they tend to satisfy all of these characteristics. Read on to find out what Access Fixtures has to offer in terms of volleyball lighting solutions.
Because game items are tiny and move rapidly, baseball grounds require more illumination than other sports venues. When it comes to sports lighting, the movement of small and fast-moving items requires more illumination than that of bigger and closer-to-the-ground moving things (such as football). In addition, players' eyes adapt to the dark easily, which would make it harder for them to see well without light.
Sports facilities usually have three main categories of lights: outfield, infield, and pitcher's mound.
Outfield lights are used in conjunction with outdoor screens to help managers monitor games and make adjustments during timeouts. These lights are typically high intensity discharge lamps powered by 12 volts direct current from a generator set off of one of the stadium's power lines. The lamps usually range in height from 4 feet to 6 feet, depending on the size of the screen, but can be as tall as 30 feet if needed. They produce a wide beam of light that covers a large area, which is necessary because there are so many people watching the game through the cameras. Managers use signals from handheld controllers to turn these lamps on and off.
Infield lights are used at each base station on the field to provide directionality by shining into specific areas for first basemen to find. These lights are typically low-voltage halogen lamps powered by 12-volt batteries connected directly to the baseboard inside the station.
Almost majority of the overhead lighting in sports stadiums and indoor arenas is provided by high-intensity discharge (HID) lights. Stadium lights, on average, have far more wattage than other outdoor lighting applications such as billboards, highways, and parking lots. This means that they can be no less than 1 kilowatt (1,000 watts). Some stadiums require even more power than this, so their light shows are planned well in advance to take advantage of this fact.
The most common type of HID used in stadium lighting is the high-pressure sodium lamp. These lamps provide very bright white light with a low color temperature (around 6500 K). They are efficient lamps for generating heat, so cooling systems are usually required to prevent overheating of interior structures. The lifespan of these lamps is typically between 10,000 and 20,000 hours, depending on usage conditions.
Stadiums are often built with much anticipation of future events, so they're not uncommon to find facilities that are equipped with high-tech lighting technology today. For example, some stadiums feature laser light shows that are capable of stunning spectators with high-definition images from remote locations.
Other advanced technologies used in sports stadiums include fiber-optic cables and robotic cameras. Fiber-optic cables replace metal wires with glass fibers, allowing for longer distances between light fixtures.
It requires around 40,000 watts to 200,000 watt flood lights to illuminate the whole football stadium. A football stadium appears to have around 1,000 lights to illuminate the pitch, and GE's lamps built for sports purposes appear to be about 500 watts apiece, for a total power usage of roughly half a megawatt. The other half comes from mains power.
Stadium lights are among the most energy-hungry forms of outdoor lighting. The average American home uses about 1500 watts of electricity per day, or 90% more than what a lamp in the stadium uses. That's because you need lots of light in a stadium to make it feel bright after dark, so all those lights have to be on at once. And that means powering up the air conditioners and heaters too, which is why stadiums tend to be rich in greenhouse gases.
The United States has over 100,000 stadium lights, consuming enough electricity to light about 50 large cities like Chicago or Philadelphia. Electricity consumption is only part of the story though; another important factor is how long the lights stay on. The larger and more powerful they are, the longer they will glow after being switched off.
The main alternative source of light in a stadium is naturally daylight. However, this can't provide everything from logo signs to whiteboards feedback screens. Also, the quality of sunlight varies a lot between seasons and locations within a location, so daylighting alone isn't enough.
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