Sweden - Covering 1080 acres across four adjacent skiing areas, Sweden's Åre ski resort is not just one of the largest in Scandinavia, but in 2009 was judged the best in the world by Conde Nast Traveller magazine. A recently completed major upgrade of the resort included the installation of some 240 luminaires on a 3.5km ski run, enabling longer opening hours in the depths of winter and so boosting revenue.
The lighting is designed to attract more visitors, creating an experience unlike any other ski run and appealing to skiers of all ages and abilities. Controlled via DMX by a network of six Pharos LPC1s and a Touch Panel Controller, the light intensities and colours of the IP-66 rated Lumenbeam family luminaires can be modified along the route of the ski slope. Both the luminaires and the control system had to be rugged enough to withstand the tough weather conditions and freezing temperatures associated with such a resort, but there was also the requirement for a reporting function in case of system failures.
Ian Fanning of Stockholm Lighting Company, who supplied all hardware, commissioning and programming to the project , explains, "The Pharos LPC1s are located in heated cabinets along the ski run, but we had no way of knowing if the heating had failed or whether there had been a power out, so we needed a feedback system.
"Pharos equipment can be programmed to accept data from a range of external devices, so we use a temperature sensor via the LPC analog inputs. As soon as the temperature drops below a certain temperature - we selected 5°C - it triggers a message to our email server, which in turn sends an email or text message to our technical staff.
"We know it works, because one day we started getting error messages from the Pharos Touch Panel Controller located in the control room at the bottom of the chair lift. As it turned out, the only problem was that the control room door had been left open!"
"All that I am doing is taking the logic that is built into the Pharos equipment and putting it to use in a different way. And having developed the system for Åre, I'm now applying it to Stockholm Lighting projects in other parts of the world. It's all about giving the client peace of mind."
