Basseterre, St. Kitts, March 07, 2014 (SKNIS): “A Dream Project.” That’s how Raj Walia Chief Executive Officer of Prabha International described his work on the Warner Park Lighting and Visual Media Project.
At the commissioning ceremony on Thursday night (March 06), Mr. Walia recounted how he came up with the unique design for the cricket stadium which upgraded its status to one of the very best in the western hemisphere.
He said that when he showed the original design to the Vice President of Technology for Qualite Sports Lighting, Nick Page, he asked “Raj are you crazy?” However, Page soon came around to the design.
“We designed a twin pole lighting system [that] does not exist anywhere in the world,” Walia revealed, while giving an overview of the project. “This lighting pole has 75 lights or fixtures on it, each delivering 2,000 watts of energy. When all four poles are in full effect they deliver 3,700 lux of light on the wicket. I don’t know any other grounds [that] have that.”
To illustrate how bright the lights are, Mr. Walia dubbed it as “daylight at midnight.”
“Warner Park lights have a CRI (Colour Rendering Index) of 92,” he explained. This “means if the sunlight is 100, you (will) have 92 percent (of that) light in the middle of the night.”
The visual media system features a high definition 44×22 foot jumbotron along with four 8×6 screens that are mounted on each of the twin poles. Referring to the jumbotron, Walia disclosed that it is a unique piece of technology.
There are only five of these in the world” he stressed. The other four are located in South Africa, Australia and two are in India. “It can deliver two trillion colours. …During the day it is beautiful and at night it looks spectacular.”
The upgrade project included the installation of an 800 kilowatt generator and 1000 kilowatt transformer as well as lighting for the Len Harris Cricket Academy, which features a practice field a few meters behind the test field.
“I would like to thank the Prime Minister, [the Right Honourable] Dr. Denzil Douglas for having faith in Prabha International, giving me the freedom to do whatever I wanted to do,” CEO Walia stressed. “When I told the Prime Minister Sir, I’m delivering my dream he said ‘Dream Again, give me a bigger project’ and I was happy.”
The senior executive at Prabha International praised the local contractors and private agencies and individuals that contributed to the project. He credited the local workers for their professional performance and announced that officials from Qualite Sports Lighting were so impressed that they have selected two local electricians to do a stint of training with them overseas.