Sunbelt UK invests in solar lighting

Sunbelt Rentals in the UK – which was A-Plant until its rebranding by parent company Ashtead at the start of May – has added £400,000 worth of new solar lighting towers from Prolectric to its rental fleet.

They were purchased by the company’s rail business in support of Network Rail’s CP6 target to reduce non-traction energy consumption by almost 20% and carbon emissions by 25%.

Paul Price, Director of Rail at Sunbelt Rentals, said, “We’ve made an initial investment of 25 units, with plans to purchase further stock later this year. We anticipate that these solar lighting towers will be a prominent offering in our fleet soon.”

The ProLight does not require fuel and its digital inbuilt remote-control function allows operators to alter the settings remotely, storing key data that can be monitored or evaluated over time.

It has a trailer-mounted unit with heavy-duty, deep-cycle batteries, an array of three or four 330W solar panels, a 7.5m telescopic mast and four LED lights that can cover a 550m² area at a minimum lux level of 20 and 10,000 to 40,000 lumens output.

The lighting towers will be used on rail renewal sites including access roads, welfare cabin areas, car parks and track working areas.

Price said, “There’s no doubt these new technologies are going to be a complete game changer for our industry and we need to push on to get to a place where using this type of technology is just the norm.

“The environmental impact of running diesel tower lights all night on large-scale sites is no longer sustainable.”

He added that, beyond the issue of carbon emissions, it is important to reduce air and noise pollution for lineside neighbours.

“The demand for sustainable, lower carbon producing tower lighting has increased in recent years,” said Price, “And Sunbelt are delighted to offer the biggest fleet in the country.”