Flip Chip Opto has successfully completed a major LED revamp project in collaboration with Aspire Resort in Taiwan, resulting in huge savings in lighting related energy costs and reductions in the resort’s carbon footprint.

Flip Chip Opto upgraded both indoor and outdoor lighting with LED lights, improving lighting effect and cutting energy bills for the Taiwan-based resort.(All Photo Courtesy of Flip Chip Opto)

A subsidiary of global computer maker Acer, Aspire Resort was established in 1999, designed by the famous American architecture company HOK. Occupying an area of roughly 25,487 square meters, the 5 story building was designed as a multi-functional space perfect for meetings and leisure purposes with 96 guest rooms, 14 meeting rooms and a restaurant. It also has a variety of sports and leisure facilities, such as a swimming pool, a gym, shops, KTV rooms etc... It provides a great place for families to relax, for tourist groups to stay, and for companies and institutions to hold educational training or conferences.

The Taiwanese resort replaced 32 Mercury-vapor high bay lamps and 17 streetlights with LED ones.

Aspire Resort is located on the grounds of Lung-tan Aspire Park, a 331,000 square-meter nature preserve with a well maintained lush green space. The open space, beautiful flora and fauna and the tea plantation surrounded the area let visitors feel relaxed and filled with harmony. These unique surroundings separate Aspire Resort from other hotels.

Recognizing that businesses have a corporate responsibility towards the environmental and improving their community, Aspire Resort has been undertaking a variety of carbon reduction initiatives to lower their carbon footprint and improve environmental friendliness of the area, with a goal of not only supporting the sustainability of the environment, but also to develop a vision of the modern hotel industry co-existing with nature.

The Customer’s Challenge

As a subsidiary of Acer and an “eco-green” resort dedicated to sustainability and reducing its carbon footprint, Aspire Resort wished to cut energy use by updating its aging 400W mercury vapor lamps with more energy efficient lighting. Though built to the latest standards at inception, the mercury-vapor lamps lighting the indoor swimming facilities as well as the outdoor walkway were becoming outclassed by today's environmentally friendly LED lights built with RoHS compliant non-toxic materials. In addition, recent government policies in Taiwan aimed at phasing out mercury vapor lamps were starting to come into effect and Aspire wanted to lead the pack in this environmentally friendly initiative. Aspire Resort saw that it was time to revamp its aging lighting system and lower its carbon foot print. Upgrading to LEDs also made financial sense. The resort knew that a new LED based lighting system would cost money up front but would pay for itself over time with much lower running costs.

The Solution

As part of its sustainability initiative, Aspire Resort replaced 32 aging 400W Mercury-Vapor High Bay lamps within its indoor swimming pool and spa facilities as well as 17 exterior street lamps lighting its landscaped walkway.

A corner of the LED illuminated space.

The company looked at various LED lighting companies but in the interest of minimizing power usage without sacrificing light quality, chose luminaires powered by Flip Chip Opto's LUNA 100 series COB LEDs. Known for cutting edge lighting technologies, Flip Chip Opto's LUNA series uses DBR Flip Chips with wireless bonding to optimize light production and thermal efficiency.

Lighting quality has been improved compared to normal wire-bonded LED's where wires on the top create lighting shadows and cause uneven light projection, because the LUNA series' “Flip chip” LED has a pure light emitting surface on top, enhanced with a Distributed Bragg Reflector(DBR) to focus the light and increase luminous intensity.

Cooling performance is also increased as the heat generating electrodes are located at the bottom of the chip closest to the thermally conductive MPCB layer, instead of on top of the chip far away from the heatsink. In addition to this “flip chip” design, the LUNA 100 COB LEDs use low temperature direct bonding to improve surface contact between the LED and substrate for optimal thermal efficiency.

The Results

By replacing its existing lighting with Flip Chip LUNA 100 series COB LEDs, Acer Aspire Resort was able to achieve an incredible 300% improvement in lighting efficiency, reducing its lighting energy consumption. Air conditioning costs in the summer were also reduced, as the cool COB LEDs dissipate less heat than legacy mercury vapor lamps. Aspire Resort estimated that annual lighting related energy savings were upwards of 33,000 kilowatt hours each year.

Using the LUNA 100 series COB LEDs with a 4000K color temperature, the Aspire Resort achieved these incredible efficiency gains while improving its light quality. The LUNA 100 series customized for the Aspire Resort had a large 70x70mm surface area that produced high quality, even illumination.

Having seen large improvements in energy efficiency at its indoor swimming pool and spa facilities and outdoor walkway with Flip Chip Opto's COB LED technology, Aspire is now planning a larger scale indoor lighting revamp of its entire facilities.