With more than 33,000 employees in Denmark and Sweden, PostNord is the largest communications and logistics company in the Nordic region. Every year 5 billion letters and 142 million packages are sorted, packed, and distributed to 25 million citizens and 2 million companies across the Nordics.

PostNord wants to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 40% before the year 2020 (base: 2009 emissions). The ambitious strategy has led to many different projects. Optimizing lighting by changing from conventional lighting to the much more energy efficient LED lighting is one of them. Over the last few years, PostNord has refurbished one building and packing central at a time. Recently, the large packing central in Broendby had its indoor and outdoor lighting upgraded to a more energy efficient solution. An upgrade that will also improve the lighting conditions considerably.

Over the past years, the lighting sector has seen a rapid transition from traditional technologies like halogen toward LED solutions. One of the biggest growth areas is the market for standardized LED luminaires with tightly integrated, non-exchangeable LED light sources. LEDs are not only more energy efficient, the quality is so good that most luminaires in a building will be replaced as a whole due to renovations or redesigns before their LEDs fail. Also, unit prices have fallen drastically, which means that more companies can reap the huge savings by changing to LED products of high quality.

PostNord has enjoyed the in-depth technical knowledge and good counselling that Kvalitek has provided as PostNord’s nationwide counselor and project manager. Together they have made a complete shift to LED luminaires from LEDVANCE. The facts that the products have the longevity of approximately 15 years (50.000h, B70/L50), a warranty time of 5 years, and a very short delivery time are some of the reasons why PostNord chose LEDVANCE. But also, because LEDVANCEs LED luminaires used in Broendby only have a 2 cm installation height. Because of the small height, they are easy to install, and therefore the installation price is the lowest that PostNord’s facility manager, Henrik Seemann, has ever seen. Also, Henrik doesn’t have to worry that PostNord’s sensitive production machinery suffers damage during the installation process.

“With an older luminaire, the best solution is not to change the light bulb. The bulb will not always provide the most optimal luminous efficacy. Also as time goes by, one will have to replace the different parts, sockets, and cords. If you change the whole integrated luminaire instead, you will reduce the sources of error and thereby gain a much better solution,” Michael Hansson from Kvalitek said.

In Broendby, PostNord have changed more than 1,200 luminaires in the warehouses, packing center, offices, cafeteria, kitchen and some of the outdoor lighting.

The new LED luminaires emit twice the light output as the old system. This is good news for the employees that work nightshifts, as they appreciate the strong and natural light they now have due to the change. The new luminaires use 50% less power and also discharge a lot less heat. Because of this, it is no longer necessary to use coolers to cool the rooms. All in all, it has been possible to reduce the total energy consumption by 25%.

With a lifespan of 15 years on average and a product warranty of 5 years, PostNord gains a wide range of benefits by using LEDVANCE’s LED luminaires and they expect to use the same solution next time around.

“The cooperation with Kvalitek as a nationwide installation partner and LEDVANCE as the lighting supplier has been a unique interaction between outstanding service and a great ability to understand the customer and offer the solutions, we as a customer desire, as well as the very good quality of products,” Henrik Seemann said and finished: “Projects like these will enable us to achieve our 2020 environmental goals.”