Stadium screens
In 2011, Cinimod Studio, an architectural and lighting design firm in London, England, delivered and interactive lighting control system for the National Stadium in Lima, Peru. This system gathers the stadium crowd’s noise levels in real time and translates that audible signal into a visual map, which is then depicted on the façade’s LED display. The majority of the LEDs are laid out as fans of ‘flames’ that wrap upwards around the form of the structure. The façade’s patterns vary in colour, speed, brightness and scale.
To design this project, Cinimod—which provided custom data processing software and hardware—collaborated with an international team, including lighting design firm CAM and software designer ArquiLEDs, both based in Lima, and E:cue, a lighting control supplier in Paderborn, Germany, along with its parent firm Traxon Technologies, an SSL project manager in Hong Kong, China.
Concert displays
Belgium-based display hardware manufacturer Barco provided a ‘transformable’ LED screen in 2009 for the 360° world concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. This moving video screen had the capacity to surround the band during performances and change shape in all directions.
Barco used more than 500,000 LEDs as pixels in the 24 x 16-m (78.7 x 52.5-ft) screen. In addition, the company integrated 1,200 LED modules throughout the surrounding edges of the stages and bridges.
Holiday Inn continues to update its hotels around the world with LED-based signs. Photo courtesy GE Lighting Solutions
Building signs
The hotel chain Holiday Inn has been switching to LEDs on a worldwide level. The project is expected to save the chain an estimated $4.4 million per year, due to reduced energy consumption and less need for maintenance.
The project has involved updating more than 3,200 hotels, including those in Canada, with new logo signs as part of an overall $1 billion global rebranding effort, using General Electric (GE) LEDs. The chain expects to cut the energy consumption of its signs—which are lit an average of 12 hours per day, 365 days each year—by 52 per cent. This represents an estimated reduction of 8,700 tonnes (9,590 tons) of carbon dioxide (CO2), equivalent to planting more than 930.8 ha (2,300 acres) of trees each year.
Similarly, AT&T has replaced 7,000 signs on more than 6,500 office buildings and stores with new ones using GE LEDs. These systems are expected to save the American telecommunications provider more than 5.8 million kWh per year, equivalent to planting more than 384 ha (950 acres) of trees.
One of the reasons for this change is AT&T’s backlit signs on high-rise buildings are expensive to maintain. They are usually mounted so high up that large cranes or even helicopters are needed to facilitate repairs. The LED systems not only virtually eliminate the problem of burned-out signs, but also are rated for 50,000 hours of use, eclipsing that of existing fluorescent systems by more than three years.
Transit vehicle signs
Many of the destination signs or indicators mounted on the front and sides of public transportation vehicles—including buses, light rail vehicles (LRVs), streetcars and trams—use LEDs to display route numbers and destination names. These are digitally controlled, allowing easy updates if a mass-transit vehicle’s routing is changed.
Backlit LCDs
Some of the commercial-grade flat-screen LCDs used exclusively for professional display purposes fall within the LED market category because of their backlight units (BLUs). Again, LEDs are being used in these devices because they are efficient, consuming 30 to 50 per cent less energy than conventional cold-cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) BLUs for similarly sized screens.
