Charleroi Airport completes major lighting upgrade to enhance runway safety

Credit: SPIE Belgium

Brussels South Charleroi Airport (CRL) has completed a major multi year programme to modernise its airfield lighting infrastructure, significantly enhancing runway safety, operational reliability and energy performance.

Delivered in partnership with SOWAER and executed by SPIE Belgium, the project represents one of the most significant technical upgrades undertaken at the Belgian airport in recent years. Although largely invisible to passengers, airfield lighting is fundamental to safe aircraft movements, guiding aircraft during taxiing, take off and landing.

Since 2018, the airport has overseen the complete renewal of its lighting power supply networks. Around 200 kilometres of underground cabling have been replaced, including 5,000 volt primary high voltage cables, 48 volt secondary cables and earth cables, together with several thousand connectors. The next generation cables, supplied in cooperation with Kabelwerk Eupen, are designed to provide an estimated service life of 15 to 20 years, reinforcing long term infrastructure resilience.

A key milestone in the programme is the transition to LED technology. Approximately 95 per cent of the airport’s lighting is now LED based, with 2,650 lights and panels installed. This transformation has reduced energy consumption by between 80 and 85 per cent, lowering demand from around 152 kW to approximately 25 kW. LED units consume five to eight times less energy than the previous halogen fittings and offer a service life two to three times longer, significantly improving asset longevity and availability.

Operational reliability has also improved markedly. Since the renovation of the upgraded circuits, no technical incidents have been recorded, whereas previous cable faults occurred several times annually.

Given that Brussels South Charleroi Airport operates a single runway, works were carried out almost exclusively at night within restricted time windows to avoid disruption to daily commercial flights. Specialised teams implemented temporary technical solutions to ensure the infrastructure was fully operational each morning.

With the completion of the programme, covered by a five year guarantee including preventive and corrective maintenance, Brussels South Charleroi Airport has strengthened both safety standards and long term operational performance while reducing its environmental footprint.