Replacing Fluorescent Ice Arena Lighting with LED Lighting

Lakeville Ice Arena replaces their 1,000 Watt Metal Halide Fixtures with LED

Lighting Retrofit for a hockey arena to save energy

Over the last 10 years Premier Lighting has retrofitted many ice rink facilities from HID (high intensity discharge) lighting to fluorescent lighting with excellent results.

The fluorescent solution for ice rinks typically reduced the energy cost by 50% or more, improved the light levels by 20% plus, and saved the customer on-going maintenance costs with a longer life product. Up until recently, fluorescent was still the best solution for ice rinks.

Lakeville MN Ice Arena requested an LED solution to replace their highly inefficient 1,000 watt metal halide fixtures. In the past, when asked to replace a fixture with this much power, there hadn’t been an LED solution capable of producing enough light. Now the goal was to replace the existing 1,000 watt metal halide fixtures with an equal number of state-of-the-art LED 2×4 High-Bay Vapor-Tight Fixtures. A great idea, but would it work?

Hockey Arena retrofitting HID to LED

Here is how we did it

  1. Carefully analyzed the facility utilizing our 20+ years of experience.
  2. Selected a wide-body LED High-Bay Fixture which seemed perfect for their needs.
  3. Ordered a Photometric Layout from the fixture manufacturer in order to estimate the light level at any point on the sheet from 30′ mounting height.
  4. The Photometric report projected that they would average approximately 55 foot-candles AFTER the LED retrofit vs. the 50 foot-candles (fc) they were getting BEFORE the retrofit.
  5. Measured & compared actual light levels (foot-candle readings) between the 1,000 watt metal halide fixtures & proposed 267 watt LED “test” fixture we previously hung. Results matched projections; now we knew it would work!

Summary of Benefits for the Lakeville Minnesota Ice Arena Lighting

  • Instant On/Off with no warm-up times (remember the Super Bowl two years ago?)
  • With LED, light levels improve as temperature decreases – perfect for ice rinks
  • Frosted diffuser for uniform light distribution without pixilation
  • Long-life LEDs have a rated life of 60,000 hours plus, which is a big deal when you consider what it takes to replace lights that are 20 or 30′ in the air.
  • 5-year warranty
  • Enhanced arena image

Payback (years): 1.83

Return-on-Investment: 54.5%

BEFORE the retrofit

Poor HID Hockey Arena Lighting

AFTER the retrofit

Retrofitting Hockey Arena with LED Light Fixtures

“We did a lighting project with Premier at the Schwan Super Rink. This was an energy-savings project that involved a retrofit from HID to fluorescent lighting. Since the retrofit, our electric bills have gone down and the skaters comment that the lighting is a lot more even – not as spotty” – Russ Rose, Building Engineer National Sports Center

3 Responses to “Replacing Fluorescent Ice Arena Lighting with LED Lighting”

  1. Jim VanZileFebruary 22, 2015 at 11:45 am #

    I am replacing 1000 watt mh in a factory and would like some info on your products thanks jim

    • GregFebruary 23, 2015 at 11:06 am #

      Thanks for the comment, Jim.

      We have some options that could work, like the LED Hi-Bays. Where are the 1000W Metal Halides within the factory you are working on?

  2. MikeJune 18, 2018 at 9:23 am #

    Looking to find out what it would cost to new lighting in the pond hockey training rink in Rosemount Minnesota

Leave a Reply