Light quality with savings potential

From February 26 to March 2, 2023, Oktalite will be showing its innovations and services on a total of 270 square meters. The spacious communication area and the open architecture offer an attractive space and plenty of opportunities for exchange. Lighting for all areas and aspects of retail can be discovered on the “Light Tour”. The core topic SUN.LIGHT.QUALITY., presenting the possibilities and advantages of increased color and image quality of retail light, plays a decisive role this year. With the trade fair motto 2023 “EFFICIENT.LIGHT.QUALITY.”, Oktalite underlines the savings potential of its solutions with the same quality of light. Product walls and application examples for food, fashion, and other applications, show how quality of light and efficiency go hand in hand.

Even in difficult times, stationary retail has a strong ally when it comes to staging products, namely the right light. However, this will have to be reassessed on a very short term, since the Ecodesign Directive will prescribe certain energy efficiency values for lamps, prohibiting the use of T8 lamps from this year on. This regulation will ban discharge lamps containing mercury. The technological transfer from the discharge lamp to the LED has already taken place many times since its introduction around 10 years ago, but many retail lighting solutions still contain lamps from the first generation. And when it comes to energy efficiency, they lag behind the LED technology that has been further developed over the past few years.

Is the restructuring that many retailers are facing a dilemma or an opportunity? "Definitely an opportunity," says Thomas Korflür (Sales Director at Oktalite Lichttechnik GmbH in Cologne). “Now is the ideal time to switch to the best light quality of the latest generation. This is not only beneficial for traders and their balance sheets, but also better for the environment, the climate and our energy resources.”

A clever light refurbishment does not have to be complicated or expensive. Oktalite offers retailers advice on funding opportunities and attractive financing, including a cost-neutral LED conversion through savings in operating costs.

Many of the luminaires from the retail specialist in the TRILUX Group are specially designed for simple refurbishment, since they are characterized by perfectly fitting optics, coordinated luminous flux, reduced connected loads or identical connections and drill holes as the previous models. "In principle, we can convert a T5/T8 E-LINE to LED technology in less than a minute," says Korflür.

The message is clear: Install or convert now. Digital sensors and a smart light management system play a central role here. "Switching to the latest generation of LED lighting already offers potential energy savings of up to 60 percent," explains Stephan Renkes (Technical Director at Oktalite). “By using our “LiveLink Retail” light management system, we can control light even better and more individually. The energy consumption then goes down by a further 25 percent.” This is a real game changer in the cost-benefit calculation and the future viability of the retail trade. But it is still important to focus on the most attractive product and space presentation in order to create competitive advantages, also compared to online trading. "The right light is the one with the best performance and differentiation at the POS and the lowest energy costs."

With this benefit, Oktalite wants to lead retail into the future. Light quality and efficiency are central building blocks of the sustainability concept from Oktalite and TRILUX. "Sustainability is the top priority in all aspects of this LED transformation," confirms TRILUX CEO Hubertus Volmert. “We have been working on the energy and material efficiency of our lights and systems for a long time. We would like to establish environmentally and climate-friendly light for sales areas, shop windows, facades, outdoor areas and outbuildings, and we think holistically for all areas of retail. When it comes to light quality, Oktalite has been setting standards here for years. Together we are now taking the next step.”

Sustainable, economical lighting makes a substantial contribution to climate protection. Here are a few key figures: A conventional lamp emits around 1 ton of CO2 during its service life, and a LED lamp emits, with 0.5 tons, only half as much. Oktalite and TRILUX are currently bringing around 5 millions of these modern LED lamps onto the market. In this way, we are saving 2.5 million tons of CO2 every year.

Further milestones in this sustainability strategy: By 2025, the German production sites of TRILUX and Oktalite should be climate-neutral. In the manufacture of lights, the company is striving for a circular economy. Many of the Oktalite spotlights are already designed in such a way that they can be broken down into their individual components and recycled. The recycling rate of individual radiators is currently up to 81 percent. Next to that, deliveries in collective packaging increasingly reduce packaging waste.

All in all, with "EFFICIENT.LIGHT.QUALITY.", Oktalite offers solutions, which - without exception - have the advantages of the different technologies for the benefit of trade and the environment.