Sports Lights

Best LED Tennis Court Lighting

What is the best tennis court lighting? No matter of new construction, upgrading the existing lighting fixtures, our LED lights are the best options when it comes to metal halide, halogen, mercury or HPS replacement. There are different lighting requirement & consideration for high school, college, commercial or residential tennis court, club or center when having high mast or high bay installation.

led tennis court flood lights optimize the use of field at night

In 2019 to 2020, we launch the new series of solar powered flood light for tennis fields that save 75 to 90% energy, which is compatible to clay, indoor hard and outdoor grass tennis courts. Apart from choosing the lights, the photometric analysis & lighting design are the keys to success as well. This page is giving you 22 reasons to buy from us.

First and foremost, you may ask how to light up an outdoor or indoor tennis court? There are 5 basic things we need to look at. (The whole steps are summarized as follow)

Tennis Court Lighting

1. Our Tennis Court Light Fulfils the Requirement

summary of lighting requirement for tennis court

Many of us may have little idea on how many sets and the arrangement of the LED lighting. No matter for outdoor or indoor tennis court, we need to know the nature of your court, whether it is for recreational use of for professional matches. For the commercial field which is opened for the public, the brightness needed is about 200 to 300 lux. In fact, the brightness requirement will be different because of the unique requirement imposed by the owners.

There are 3 classes of illumination classification in accordance with the ITF’s tennis court lighting recommendation. Class I is the most professional, for the international competitions such as Wimbledon Championships; Class II represents Mid-level competitions like the local club’s matches; and Class III is for recreational matches. These 3 classes have different lux requirement. For instance, 500 lux for Class I, 300 & 200 lux for Class III & III respectively.

2. Get the Right Power of Tennis Court Floodlights from Us

300W LED Floodlights for Outdoor Tennis Court

In this page we take 200 lux as an example, as it is one of the most typical scenarios.

Let’s do a quick calculation, to light a 200 meter-square court, at least we need to install the lights producing 200 m2 * 200 lux = 40,000 lumens. If you select our LED flood lamps for tennis field, the power required = 40,000 / 140 = 285 watt, which means the rough idea is about 300 watt LED lights for each court. And thus, you can see LED is an energy efficient choice because the power consumption is reduced after the replacement from metal halide or halogen lamps. However, it only account for the tennis play area and the audience seat area is not considered. For a more precise lighting design, our engineer will give you the support.

You have no need to worry about it is difficult to find the LED lights with specific power because we manufacture different power floodlights, from 100 watt to 10000 watt; hence you can always find the luminaries that are best fit to your sports fields.

3. Our Lighting for Tennis Court has High Lighting Uniformity

After solving the power selection, we need to focus on lighting uniformity. It is a value ranging from 0 to 1 to reflect the ratio between minimum or average lux to maximum lux in the specific area. We can imagine the uniformity increases with value as the difference between average and maximum lux is lower.

Some owners may require the floodlights for tennis court should have high lighting uniformity. It is reasonable to have this request because the uneven brightness across the field will affect the vision and thus the performance of players, and the audience experience. Generally, uniformity of 0.6 to 0.7 is adequate for almost all types of tennis court. To obtain the best results, our engineers make use of LED lights having various beam angle and projection angle. In the professional setting, we will need hundreds of smaller power LEDs.

high uniformity and CRI LED tennis court lighting

4. High CRI for World-class Tennis Tournament

CRI in an index indicating how real the color is observed under the lights. For the top-class tournament such as Wimbledon and US Open, the CRI of the lighting for tennis field should have at least 80.

5. We offer a Wide Range of Color Temperature

The temperature indicates the color of the lights. Most of the cases require 5000 to 6000K, which is referred as cool white light. For some tennis club, they may want the warm white light having 2800 to 3500K.

Electricity bill is one of the major running cost of tennis court. To help you reduce the cost, there are 3 energy-saving tips related to lighting.

6. Using Solar Power for Outdoor High Mast Tennis Court Lighting

tennis court lamp using solar power

In 2018, we launch a new series – hybrid power system. The solar powered panels are attached to the high mast pole or the lamp body. Comparing to the past technology, our energy efficiency of solar energy usage is improved by 30%. By making use of this safe renewable energy, the electricity cost can be greatly reduced. Depending on the power of the tennis floodlights, the battery can last for up to 3.5 hours. To give you a better user experience and continuous illumination, you can always switch to conventional mode, which do not use the solar energy.

Installation of solar powered lamps into the lamp post does not affect the water-proof function of the flood lamp. We select the best material so as to enhance the durability. For the detail specification of the solar powered lamps, you can consult our engineer at the bottom of this page.

7. Metal Halide, Halogen or Mercury Replacement

brightness enhancement after metal halide replacement for tennis court

There are more and more tennis center owners willing to replace their old HID lights because of the instant energy saving and extension of life span. The general idea is that we can compare the lighting efficiency of the current MH, halogen or other lights with LED. For instance, 500W LED lights can replace 1000W metal halide if the lighting efficiency of these lamps are 130 lm/W and 65 lm/W respectively. For the more precise and detailed explanation, please feel free to approach our engineers by filling in our contact form.

8. Our LED Tennis Court Floodlights has High Luminous Efficacy

How to know if my lighting fixtures are energy saving? In fact, there is no direct relationship between power and brightness of the floodlights. A lower power light can be brighter than higher ones. For instance, a 400 watt metal halide bulb has 65 lm/W lighting efficiency, and thus its lumen output (brightness) is 400 x 65 = 26000 lumens. However, our 250 watt LED light has 130 lm/W, which gives 250 x 130 = 32500 lumens. It is observed that if we select the luminary with high efficacy, we can use lesser power and thus lesser amount of light.

To avoid costly maintenance fees, we can adopt the high-quality and durable products. Best quality lighting for tennis play should have the following 6 characteristics.

9. Lighting that can Resist High Temperature for Outdoor Tennis Court

We need to ensure the outdoor lighting for tennis court can resist high temperature, such as under scorching sun. It is because overheating can damage the lights. Our products utilize the LED flip-chip technology that reduce the heat generation by 20% when comparing to the similar products available in the market.

It is strongly recommended to use LED to replace HID lamps because the former one concert 95% energy directly to lumen output while the latter one turns 40 to 50% energy to heat, which aggravates the overheating issue. Using the LED lights is an extrinsic way to deal with high temperature issue.

10. The Lights Should be Waterproof

raining tennis court

Once the floodlights are installed, they will be susceptible to every adverse weather condition such as rainstorm and snow for specific countries. To have the better reinforcement on the lights, it is strongly recommended to let us know whether the surrounding environment have the special issue. According to our experience, some of our client reflect that acid rain problems are involved near the court; in accordance with this issue, we further reinforce the tennis lights by adding the thin polycarbonate cover over the aluminum shell to help enhance the durability during the manufacture. In general, our products support IP66 waterproof.

11. The Flood Lamps Should Work Under Extremely Low Temperature

low-temperature-led-sports-lightingEspecially for outdoor tennis court, chances are that the lights may encounter snow storm. It is very unlikely that the HID lamps can work under such the low temperature because of its delicate structure.

Nonetheless, our LED light passes the low temperature laboratory test. They can be functional up to -40°C.

12. Lighting for Indoor Tennis Court Should Have Good Heat Dissipation System

Strong & persistent heat damages the LED chips and thus reduce the brightness and life span. To solve this issue, we develop exclusive and effective heat dissipation system that maintain proper heat lost. The heat sink involves dense aluminum fins attached at the back of the light to provide large surface area for the heat dissipation.

13. No Warm Up Time

With the technology advancement, outdoor floodlighting for tennis court become more common in LED type. In the past decades, the 1000 Watts to 2000 Watts Metal Halide needs around 15 minutes to warm up and they are needed to be replace frequently because of its relatively short life span. Nevertheless, LED lights for tennis field do not need any start up time, which means the luminaries can be turned on and off instantly.

14. Life Span of The Tennis Court Flood Lamp

Why do we need to choose the flood lamp that is more long-lasting? It is because it can avoid the expensive replacement fees, including the cost of buying the new lights and re-installation.

LedsMaster LED luminaries has 80,000 hours life span, which is equivalent to 27 years for if you turn on 8 hours per day. If you compare the service life of different kinds of traditional lighting (10000 hours for fluorescent, 20000 hours for HPS & LPS, 8000 hours of metal halide, and etc), LED light has the best performance.

If you want to push the lighting solution to the next level, we can buy the products that have the following 5 premium features.

15. Anti-glare Feature

Glare means the strong light that make the tennis players or audience feel discomfort or even irritated. Especially for high power LED lights, if there is no special design on the LED chips, people may feel dazzling when looking at the lights. We have the patented design on the anti-glare lens that reduce the dazzling effect by 40%.

16. Flickering Free LED Chips

This feature is important for professional tennis courts that hold televised competition. Fluorescent and metal halide lights are susceptible to flickering under camera because of the brightness significantly fluctuate under low frequency. This greatly affect the user experience because of uneven brightness.

Nonetheless, the new era LED lights are compatible to 6000 Hz slow motion camera and the fluctuation rate is less than 0.3% (based on maximum lumen).

17. Modularization Design

Have you even wondered that how to repair the light if they are unforeseeably damaged? Instead of removing the entire light, we can just replace the broken unit (or module) by simple soldering.

18. Avoid Spill Lights Outside Tennis Court (Especially for Residential Areas)

Tennis courts’ light pollution affects the daily lives of surrounding residential areas, and the strong lights may also blur the vision of the road users nearby. According to the international standard, the brightness of the spill light should not exceed 10 to 25 lux. By having the comprehensive lighting design, we can suppress the unwanted light in the greatest extent.

19. Special Consideration (Case-by-case study)

An interesting case is one of our clients reflected that there are many tiny birds nesting on the luminaries because of the warmth in the high school sports field. There are no problems for nesting on floodlights, but the eggs may not be stable when hanging in such the height and slippery surface. Therefore, we add the shield that prevent them from staying on the lights. It is for the birds’ safety. Since we own a factory and R&D team, we can make the special components that help solve the issues inside or outside the courts.

Last but not the least, as a buyer, we can also look for if the company have the following service.

20. Free Photometric Design

Indoor tennis court lighting photometric lighting design

Apart from buying the tennis court lamps, you can also enjoy FREE DIALux service from us. We know that each ball field will have different lighting requirement such as the number of poles, height of poles, brightness lux requirement, anti-glare, flicker-free or other special lighting needs of outdoor or indoor tennis court. We can satisfy your needs because we can offer tailor-made LED lighting for tennis court for you without any additional cost. As for the maintenance.

21. Customization on Tennis Field Floodlights

We are the exclusive company providing free customization service. You can select any power from 100 to 10000W, the beam angle of 25, 40, 60, 90, 120°, color temperature from 2800 to 7500K and etc. Our engineers are eager to help.

22. Warranty

Before buying the LED lights, it is highly recommended to have a look at the warranty period. We offer 5-year warranty for the sports flood lights.

Lighting Design for Tennis Court

The lighting standard of outdoor and indoor tennis court are quite similar – we need to ensure that the lux level (brightness), uniformity as well as the ratio between horizontal and vertical illuminance fulfil certain requirement. Let’s have a look at the case study.

It is an outdoor double tennis court located in US. Before we start designing the lighting, we have to understand the client’s need and the nature of the tennis court.

1. Lux (Brightness) Level Requirement

It is an outdoor tennis court in a club. According to the owner, it is mainly designed for recreational tennis play, though sometimes it holds some mid-level competitions. Since the owner has no idea on the brightness of the tennis court should have, we suggest that to have 400 lux level, which is the most appropriate for sports clubs. We need to carefully decide the ground brightness because the blinding light will not only irritate the players, but increase your installation & electricity cost.

Our 400W LED light is able to replace 1000W metal halide and 4000W halogen flood lights, and thus you can save up to 90% energy on lighting. One of the most convenient way is to replace the luminaries one by one if you want to maintain the same light lux level in the tennis court.

lighting-uniformity-comparison

2. Lighting Uniformity

As illustrated from the above graph, bright spots suddenly appear in the middle of the tennis court if the lighting solution has poor lighting uniformity. It affects the vision and thus the performance of tennis player. If you have tight budget and cannot increase the number of lighting fixtures for reasons, we can select the flood lights having large beam angle. It is because they can deliver more dispersed area lighting. It is particular useful if the light pole is not high enough. Contact our engineers to get the free photometric lighting report and design.

Lamp Cost and Running Cost of Tennis Court Lighting

After buying the lights, we also need to consider the maintenance cost and running cost. Normally we have no need to replace our LED lights again for more than 24 years because the life span of our tennis court lamps is around 80000 hours (based on 8 to 9 hours daily use). Besides, our LED lights is made of strong aluminum alloy and polycarbonate, which resist the impact of the fast-moving tennis ball, so the lights are very unlikely to be damaged unless they are maliciously smashed.

1. How Much Does It Cost to Run the Tennis Court Lighting?

Take the above case as an example. We eventually deliver 5000W LED light for the double tennis court. If the owner turns on the lights for 8 hours per day, the running cost of the tennis court flood lights = 5000W x 8 x $0.12 / 1000 = $4.8 daily and $144 monthly. By replacing the existing 12000W metal halide lamps, we can save $6.72 daily and $201.6 monthly running cost!

(* Note: this is just a quick example for reference only as we will have different powers in different situations)

2. The Lamp Cost

Depending on the size of the club, pole height and the lux level, the tennis court lighting cost varies. For instance, the lamp cost of a single tennis court is around $1000 to $3500 for recreational use, and up to $5000 to $8000 for professional field. Surely it is just a rough estimation only. If your tennis arena has tall high mast pole and is designed for international tournament, the cost of lighting part would be higher.

Nonetheless, we deliver quality yet budget-friendly lighting solutions for both indoor and outdoor tennis fields. Please feel free to contact our sales representative for more info.

Conclusion

Lighting is important for tennis court. LED is the best solution because of its high brightness, energy efficiency, uniformity and durability. We manufacture the high energy efficient and cost-effective outdoor sports lighting that saves 75% to 90% energy when comparing to the traditional lighting fixtures. By improving the user experience, we can optimize the use and the revenue coming from the hiring fees of tennis courts.