A partnership of LED lighting specialist Sonaray and energy solution provider Beacon Energy is providing bespoke lighting solutions for the rail sector.
Sonaray says its service and technologies strive to provide operators and infrastructure owners with the most efficient lighting solutions.
“We’re working together because Sonaray has worked with industrial companies around the world, and Beacon specialise in energy auditing,” Sonaray Australia project manager Alex Poon tells Rail Express. “Rail is a high energy consumption industry, so we aim to partner together as a rail solutions provider.”
Beacon Energy Solutions, a division of ASX-listed firm Beacon Lighting, aims to be the most trusted provider of renewable energy solutions for clients eager to minimise their impact on the environment, and reduce energy costs.
Beacon’s CEO Glen Robinson says the move into renewable energy solutions made sense.
“With the Beacon brand already leading the way in energy-efficient lighting, expanding into solar power and energy efficiency services was the perfect opportunity to offer our commercial clients renewable energy solutions, to reduce both long term operating expenses and impact on the environment,” Robinson says.
Sonaray’s parent company, Dascom, was formed in 1986, and in 1995 partnered with Japanese firm Citizen Electronics to develop new LED lighting technology. Today all Sonaray lighting products use CITLED LED chips, valued for their compact, lightweight design, and long service life, making them efficient and environmentally friendly.
Sonaray itself was formed in 2008, as Dascom’s registered brand in lighting, an opened headquarters in the United States and Singapore in 2009, in Germany and Melbourne in 2012, and in Malaysia in 2014. Today, the company offers a complete line of LED lighting solutions, designed for quality, clarity of light, and energy saving operation.
On top of supplying its own award-winning product range, in Australia Sonaray offers lighting consultation, design and audits, lighting simulations, customised lighting engineering, and distribution.
It specialises in commercial and industrial environments, where optimal ambience and performance are essential. Key verticals include airports, warehouses, manufacturing facilities, and transportation.
For rail, its primary innovations include dust reduction lighting systems, vibration-dampening lighting systems for lights constantly on the move, optical lens control systems designed to reduce glare and direct light with minimal loss (i.e. light pollution), and a range of off-grid solar lights, perfect for sites with little access top grid power, or operators seeking extra efficiencies.
Sonaray’s off-grid solar light range incorporates a 3-screw, easy-install design. Rugged, waterproof and impact-resistant, the all-in-one solar lighting devices can provide up to 17 hours of continuous light with a range of optic controls. Sonaray also markets the product in a portable mode, with a heavy concrete base that can be moved via forklift around a worksite.
Poon says the off-grid solar light technology is already in action on Australian rail sites, where it is valued for its reliability and mobility. “Very often in rail you will access a lot of remote areas,” he says. “Stations, facilities, are often in the middle of nowhere, and power is far away, or too expensive to get onsite. So the all-in-one solar light and battery is a great solution for them from a cost perspective.
“Often their site is huge, so even if they have a number of fixed lights much of their site will be dark at night. The portable solar light can give them mobility – they can take the light to an area that they want, leave it there for, say six months, and then pick it up and move it again.”