Great control and performance

In 2003, Laing O'Rourke, the company which built the Millennium Stadium and the City of Manchester Stadium, was appointed to build Coventry's Ricoh Arena.

Work started in January 2004, and the Ricoh Arena opened for the first time on 20 August 2005 - as Coventry City beat Queen's Park Rangers 3-0.

While a lighting control system was installed during the build, using the Clipsal C-Bus platform, for reasons outside of the owner's control, the system handover was never completed, leaving the building management with no documentation for the system.

The site's management contacted TEST to inspect the system and to discuss their requirements. The existing system architecture comprised of six separate C-Bus systems - three of which were linked via network adaptors. The site management wanted to explore the possibility of linking the three remaining systems, so they could achieve control across the whole system.

TEST's engineers were able to survey the site by connecting to the various networks and recording the different pieces of system hardware and their functions. Their findings and recommendations for improvement were then included in a report and presented to the site's management.

In mid 2008, the site placed an order with TEST to implement the recommendations, which included replacing the various switch panels with two touch screens, one in the security office and one in the pitch control room. This enabled the site to control a greater amount of lighting circuits from the two locations.

TEST also modified the Jaguar Hall lighting controls, so that they could control lighting in individual rows, rather than as two halves of the room.

By August 2008, work was completed, and TEST had provided the Ricoh Stadium with an integrated lighting system that brought greater control across two locations, as well as modifying the existing Jaguar Hall lighting controls.

TEST also provided all required documentation to ensure that all the various pieces of system hardware and their functions were recorded.

Since then, TEST has continued to work with the site's management to explore further enhancements to the lighting system and find ways of delivering greater control and increased energy savings.