Coventry manufacturer sets sail with Royal Navy warship deal
A Coventry company has completed its largest ever order totalling £1m to supply energy-saving lights to the Royal Navy’s flagship warships.
Voltacon, based at Burnsall Road Industrial Estate in Canley, has provided 100,783 tubes of LED Lighting for 21 of the UK’s Royal Navy fleet including the new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.
Around 100 staff worked round-the-clock for 45 days to manufacture the LED tube lights at Voltacon’s factory in China to process the order in record time.
The lights were then transported to Portsmouth naval base where the warships are docked in batches of between 8,000-10,000 to be installed by 40 electricians from BAE Systems.
Stefanos Kandilidis, managing director at Voltacon whose client base includes commercial and residential customers, said the Royal Navy had tested around 3,000 pieces of LED lighting before going ahead with the order for 21 ships which also includes six Type 45 Destroyers, 13 Type 23 Frigates and two Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers.
He said: “This is one of our biggest ever single orders of over £1m and probably the largest off shore lighting contract in the world.
“We had been in discussions with the Ministry of Defence for three years and they had also tested our lights for three years on the ships before the refurbishment work on the fleet began.
“Previously, the ships were fitted with fluorescent lights but there are many benefits in changing to LED lighting.
“Lamps and tubes can be difficult to source and keeping spare parts when you are at sea is not easy but having LED energy-saving lights reduces costs, maintenance load and storage space as they last longer.
“Long-term, it reduces energy which is important when the ships are running on low power.”
Kandilidis said the lights are now being installed on an opportunity basis when the ships are in dock so it may be 12 months before they are all fully fitted.
“We are really proud to have our lights installed on the Royal Navy’s fleet including the HMS Queen Elizabeth which is the UK’s new aircraft carrier with the second carrier, HMS Prince of Wales in build in Rosyth Naval Dockyard,” he added.
Keith Young, of the Ministry of Defence’s procurement agency, defence equipment and support, said: “It has been excellent to work with Voltacon. They are quite a small company compared with the ones we normally deal with, but this has been extremely beneficial as there has been more of a personal touch.
“The company has very good products which will be hugely beneficial to us and has been extremely flexible, ensuring that our order was processed quickly so that the lights are ready to install.”
