Lightning concept
As bright as necessary, as little light radiation as possible
In the sensitive Wadden Sea tidelands, RWE Dea has been developing the Mittelplate crude oil reservoir for more than 20 years now. Innovative technical solutions ensure safe and environmentally compatible operation of the drilling and production island. Now the lighting concept has also been completely revised. The objective was to reduce the level of light radiation in order to disturb migrating birds as little as possible on their journey through the Wadden Sea National Park at night.
Targeted illumination of workplaces
The specialists listed all light sources in external areas, classified them and analysed how they could be optimised. Lighting was to be designed in such a way as to ensure that as little light as possible was emitted in the Mittelplate environment; at the same time, however, the lighting had to be sufficient to enable employees to safely find their way around the Mittelplate drilling and production island and to illuminate their workplaces.
On Mittelplate, work is not carried out continually in all sections of the island, especially during the night. For this reason, RWE Dea managed to reduce the lighting sources installed on the platform to a bare minimum. Employees who set foot in an area of this kind now switch on the light themselves. In some places – especially on the stairs to the living quarters – RWE Dea has also installed light barriers that automatically ensure additional, adequate lighting is available.
In all locations where it needs to be bright all the time, lamps were given optimum alignment or in some cases fitted with anti-glare louvres. It was possible to halve the number of lamps for the escape gangway on the outside of the sheet pile wall of the drilling and production islands. Only three of the formerly 28 luminaires are permanently switched on, and the remaining 11 can now additionally be activated manually.
The lights are operated from the control station. The platform operator can intervene via the process control system and adjust the level of illumination to match the prevailing conditions. In order to ensure that lights are not on unnecessarily in the external area, all lamps are switched off automatically as soon as there is sufficient daylight. At dawn or dusk, each lighting section needs to be switched on again, i.e. this does not occur automatically.
Before-and-after comparison of lighting on Mittelplate
In order to find out whether the measures have been successful, RWE Dea has prepared a before-and-after photo documentation. The staff members took the photographs when there was a new moon on each occasion, to ensure that the results would not be distorted by other sources of light. Even at first glance, a substantial improvement is discernible:
View of the west side from a distance of 300 metres: Before-and-after comparison
View of the south side from a distance of 300 metres: Before-and-after comparison
Safety at work has priority in designing the lighting measures
Safety at work enjoyed priority in the course of all measures that were taken. In the process, it was important above all to comply with the parameters laid down by the German Federal Mining Ordinance (Allgemeine Bundesbergverordnung) Germanischer Lloyd, an independent expert for marine technology facilities, has awarded certification of this compliance to RWE Dea. What is more, the expert described the automatic activation of lighting by means of light barriers as a particularly good achievement
