Elba and Cree LEDs teamed up to lighten up the lives of Timisoara inhabitants

Together with partner Cree, Elba provides the know-how and the LEDs for a new illumination system of the impressing Romanian National Opera

Oportunity

The Romanian National Opera in Timisoara is one of the national opera companies of Romania. Together with the Mihai Eminescu National Theatre it is located in one of the most iconic buildings of the western Romanian city with its rich history. Originally constructed in the middle of the 19th century, the opera had been destroyed several times and was last rebuilt in the 1920’s after a fire had damaged much of the building with its renaissance façade. The first performance after the re-opening took place in 1947: Aida by Giuseppe Verdi. During the 1989 Revolution in Romania, the opera served as headquarters for the revolutionaries.

The Romanian National Opera is a tourist attraction and the pride of the Timisoara inhabitants. Like most attractions, especially buildings, the landmark’s significance should be underlined by an illumination at night. But the realization of such a project normally requires a lot of resources – not only when implemented but especially by keeping and servicing. Regarding an illumination system of that size, the permanent replacement of lamps as well as the energy consumption will eat up a lot of money. No one would like a landmark in the dark, so there seemed no alternative to having an illumination system squander vast sums year by year.

Timisoara's Opera House, with lights by ELBA, photo Pusha Petrov

Timisoara’s Opera House, with lights by ELBA, photo Pusha Petrov

Solution

The operators of the Romanian National Opera had a great idea. They contacted Elba S.A., a Timisoara-based lighting company with more than 90 years of tradition and experience. Elba teamed up with Cree, specialist for high-performance LED technology. Together, they developed a lighting concept for the Romanian National Opera.

The concept includes 151 custom-built lighting fixtures by Elba as well as more than 4600 high-performance and high-quality LEDs by Cree. They employed the proven and reliant XLamp XP-E, the optimal choice for the heavy duty of artfully enlightening the complex and impressing building. Total output of the installation is 9.4 KW with an average output per unit of 62 W.

Benefits

The beautiful architecture of the Romanian National Opera now is illuminated by a truly custom tailored solution that delivers a great aesthetic impression and displays the building in a unique and unforgettable way. The implemented XLamp XP-E LED combines reliability and performance with a remarkably small footprint and delivers an industry-leading 307 Lumens at 3.4 W – an unprecedented output and efficiency at the same time.

The brilliant white light emitted by the LEDs has a groundbreaking intensity and beam distribution and so brings out the best of the Opera building’s proportions at night. The solution has been implemented in a really short time. The end-to-end process audit to execution took no more than six weeks so the inhabitants of Timisoara saw the new illumination evolving virtually at the speed of light. But the best is yet to come – to be precise: it already is put into effect. The solution of Elba and Cree saves from day one. The high quality illumination system not only delivers a feast for the eye but helps to realize considerable cost savings for the local authorities that run the Romania National Opera building. So, the team of Elba and Cree created real value for the city of Timisoara and its inhabitants, because the newly illuminated opera building not only is a tourist attraction, but lightens up the lives of those who live in the city, too.

ELBA SA

135 Paul Morand, Freidorf Industrial Park Timișoara, Timiș, Romania

Telephone +40 356 443 902
E-mail office@elba.ro