As of March 2017, PNC Park, the 38,362-seat home of the Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball team, has benefited from a retrofit LED lighting system from Eaton’s Ephesus Lighting Solutions on the playing field, replacing a metal-halide system. This upgrade reduces glare, provides more uniform on-field illumination, and requires little to no maintenance.

“To minimize glare, we maximize the number of point sources on the fixture—the total number of LEDs used—to essentially spread the light out more evenly across its face,” says Mike Lorenz, Ephesus president. “We also use custom lenses to precisely direct the light where we want.”

The retrofit incorporated Ephesus Stadium Pro fixtures with a LandBurst digital control system allowing 100 percent dimming capabilities, color temperature tuning, and advanced control capabilities within each fixture. This provides more options for special effects, as “the lights not only dim but can also flash and create dynamic scenes,” says Lorenz.

Halide lights are traditionally used in professional sportsstadium lighting systems because the large amounts of light and energy required also generate high amounts of heat, which can cause LED lights to degrade or fail. “Our lights generate less heat than other lighting systems and are designed to handle heat more efficiently,” Lorenz explains. Two main sections of the Stadium Pro are designed with “fins” to maximize surface area, and the power supply in the rear and the LEDs in the front are thermally isolated from each other, allowing heat to dissipate.

“The season is only a few weeks old,” says Pittsburgh Pirates president Frank Connelly, “but the response to our new LED lights has been very positive from players, broadcasters, and fans alike.”