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Arkon Deepens Relationship With Tampa Port

The LED solutions expert provided the most competitive bid for a massive retrofit at Port Tampa Bay.

Port Tampa Bay needed a major lighting overhaul at its sprawling downtown docking center. So the state’s largest and most diverse commercial port turned to a supplier that had served it well in the past—Arkon Power. Arkon first worked with Port Tampa Bay in the summer of 2015, when the LED supplier retrofitted the port’s highly visible atrium lighting. This time around, Arkon was tapped for a much larger project: replacing 120 metal halide floodlights with long lasting, efficient LEDs. Where the metal halide bulbs had been 1,000 watts apiece, Arkon was able to engineer a solution using 320-watt standard LED floodlights.

“This was all on the loading docks where they bring the ships in,” Arkon Technical Manager Graham Brown said. “The poles are about 150 feet from the water and shining out to illuminate the water’s edge where the ships unload. It was a very cool project.” Brown said the LED lights, which were replaced roughly one-to-one on existing light poles and placed about 45 feet up, easily achieved the required 5 foot-candles on the ground throughout the Port Tampa Bay loading dock.

Brown and his team completed a photometric plan (i.e., a computer lighting simulation) to show the proposed design met the port’s criteria. After installation was complete, the team conducted a site review using a light meter and confirmed the numbers matched the plan. “The lights were spread around four different docks, and each required a slightly different alignment, with up to six fixtures on each pole,” Brown said. “We experimented with a variety of optics and fixture orientations.”

In addition to offering its advanced engineering expertise, Arkon was able to offer Port Tampa Bay the most cost-effective bid among multiple suppliers. Arkon’s previous successes working with the port and warranty offerings also set it apart from the competition. “The port is a government agency, so there are more details required for the bid and a more extensive bidding process,” Brown said. “It’s something we’re very comfortable with, and we look forward to more projects like it in the future.”