“Light is part of the cities. For that reason, we have to take good care of it”, explains Ángel González Calvo, managing director of Setga, a Galician company dedicated to the design and manufacture of outdoor and indoor lighting, as well as urban furniture and signage.
SETGA was born in 1988 as an engineering and lighting design company. “It was the result of the meeting of several engineers who understood that, in this sector, everything had to be done”, González remembers. My initial partner, who is an economist, gave us the necessary rigor and character”.
The founders’ objectives were the technological anticipation and also the practice of disruptive design, working in collaboration with other technicians and architects. Their first important project was the installation of public lighting in Pontevedra. “It was our test laboratory”, the managing director says.
The installation of 3,000 kilograms of street lights on the promenade of A Coruña was also one of their most outstanding projects. “It was a challenge and the most ambitious public lighting project executed in Europe in the nineties”, he points out.
Nowadays, SETGA is present in over 15 countries in four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa and America. In fact, the turnover obtained abroad represents 50% of the total.
“We have managed to overcome the crises without problems, preserving our principles of quality, innovation and collaboration” Ángel González, managing director of SETGA
The company’s income has been risen from 7 million euros in 2015 to 11 million euros in 2019, with an annual growth rate of over 6%. Its activity generates 70 direct jobs and 140 indirect ones. “We have managed to overcome the crisis without problems, preserving our principles of quality, innovation and collaboration with prestigious architects. We have distributed very few dividends and we also have been able to keep very good clients,” Ángel González says.
SETGA has a production capacity of nearly 265,000 luminaires per year. In addition, the company designs and manufactures outdoor lanterns, LED modules, beacons, steel and wooden columns, facade supports and catenary systems. The company also has projectors to work in indoor spaces.
For the signaling area, Setga has traffic lights, beacons, and interactive tiles and pavements, focused on pedestrian safety. Bollards, bike racks and benches and litter bins complete the urban furniture offer. Lighting represents about 90% of the total turnover.
Among the latest achievements of Setga there is the award of a project to modernize the Amsterdam city lighting. As part of the project, Setga will renovate 42,000 light points – expandable to 100,000 – with LED technology, representing a third of the public lighting infrastructure of the city. The initial investment is 10 million euros.
Luminaire upgrade in Haarlem (Amsterdam) with LED technology.
“We have achieved a lot of prestige. We were competing with the world’s leading manufacturers,” the managing director emphasizes. Setga is present in more than 100 municipalities in the Netherlands. “It may be the most demanding market, but we are very comfortable”.
As for SETGA’s short-term initiatives, they have some directly related to the coronavirus pandemic. “When the health crisis broke out, we needed to have some kind of system to disinfect personal protective equipment” he says. The company immediately started the project with the support of the Agencia Gallega de Innovación, for the manufacture of sterilizing cabins through ultraviolet light.
The objective is to develop a system that can be used in hospitals, health centers and residences. “In about eight or nine months we will be able to present it to the market. It will be simple and safe, and initially will be used to disinfect masks and gloves”, he reveals.
The directive makes a warning: “there are many internet sales of articles to sanitize these materials that could threaten people’s safety”.
In fact, SETGA is especially concerned about intrusiveness. “The biggest tensions in the industry come from an increasingly low-cost, low-quality market, mainly from the Middle East. The administration should be more rigorous with new players and importers who do not even meet the minimum quality standards at the national and European level. It is something very serious, because it is a type of light that can damage the retina of people,” he argues.
Inadequate use of light has consequences not only for health, but also for the environment and the economy. “Installations that are not correct waste 25% of light. A well-executed luminaire can reduce consumption between 70% and 80%,” Angel Gonzalez argues.
On the way to greater health protection, Setga has developed an intelligent lighting technology to adapt to the circadian rhythm of people (Circadionic). The National Institute of General Medical Sciences explains that circadian rhythms are physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a daily cycle, and that respond, primarily, to light and darkness.
SETGA’s technology, that is present in places such as Spain and Europe, allows to adapt the tone of light to the different hours of the day. “It is the present and the future. Replicating natural light should be a requirement,” González Calvo summarizes.
Social commitment and business efficiency
Installation of exclusive traffic lights on the Gran Vía in Madrid.
Talent. The recruitment of long-term unemployed people over 45 years and dependents let the company “to reveal new sources of talent thanks to the project Light and Talent, created together with the Spanish Red Cross. This is the first cross-cutting program of training and social employment carried out in the European industry.
Equality. The company approved an equality plan for employees that went into effect in the summer of 2018 and has a duration of four years.
The “Principia 2019” programme consists of a series of grants awarded by the Regional Government of Galicia to companies that hire employees under 35 years old, for a minimum period of one year, to carry out R&D activities, in order to advance their professional careers, as well as to stimulate demand in the public and private sector of sufficiently qualified personnel to develop strategic projects for Galicia (RIS3)
After three years of intense work, we have completed the development of the CANDELA project that has allowed us to create a set of solutions to measure, model, optimise and act in real time on the entire public lighting system of a city. In the project, an intelligent luminaire model has been developed, with the ability to measure its current state (e.g. Consumption or health), to adapt the city’s lighting in a much more granular way and to communicate with a control centre within the paradigm of the smart city. In addition, the use of the mobile laser scanner permits automation of public lighting network inventory, plus export of positioning data and luminaire metadata.
The CANDELA consortium consists of 4 Galician companies:
SETGA: Project leader focussing on the design, development and integration of the intelligent luminaire remote management system.
INSITU ENGINEERING: Development of the laser scanner required to manage luminaire inventory.
INTECO ADVANCED ENGINEERING: Responsible for automatic integration of data collected by the laser scanner, as well as interface development.
ITELSIS AUDIOVISUAL SYSTEMS: Focussed on the luminaire remote management system. In the project we have been supported by the Galician Telecommunications Technology Centre (GRADIANT) and the University of Vigo, represented by the Energy Technology Group (GTE) and the Applied Geotechnology Group (AG).
The following objectives have been met in this recently completed project:
• Reduced public lighting energy cost by improving regulation through online and automated controls.
• Improved facilities maintenance based on early detection of incidents and predictive maintenance.
• Improved visual perception from facility users through improved management.
• Improved road safety through regulation of adaptive lighting to changing weather conditions and by progressive deterioration (e.g. ageing or decay) of the installations.
• Increased accuracy of knowledge of real conditions of the luminaire installations in the city through automation of the inventory and the continuous audit process.
• Optimised energy expenditure of infrastructure through the use of simulation processes.
• Facilitated administrative decision-making based on generation of visual information understandable by non-experts regarding proposals to improve facilities.
• Accelerated technical decision-making through generation of simulation batteries and its presentation of results to expert personnel.
• Improved communication with citizens with regards to existing public lighting services and possible improvements to these services.
The results of the project have been validated in the pilot plant that has been installed in Santiago de Compostela.
This project has been subsidised by the Galician Innovation Agency and supported by the Ministry of Economy, Employment and Industry, co-financed by FEDER, OT1 “”Promotion of technological development, innovation and quality research””, P.O. FEDER Galicia 2014-2020.
In the project, an intelligent luminaire model has been developed, with the ability to measure its current state (e.g. Consumption or health), to adapt the city’s lighting in a much more granular way and to communicate with a control centre within the paradigm of the smart city. In addition, the use of the mobile laser scanner permits automation of public lighting network inventory, plus export of positioning data and luminaire metadata.
File Number IN852A 2016/81
Project duration: 08/02/2016 – 30/11/2018
A- Global objectives of the project:
Digitalisation and automation of the life cycle of public lighting projects: 1. Infrastructure audit, 2. Light calculation, 3. Sensorisation and 4. Integrated interactive verification.
B- Project results:
1. 99% reduction of operating time during the integral project cycle, reducing number of hours used from 8730 to 81 in average infrastructure of 30,000 light points.
2. Participatory connectivity with the entire lighting infrastructure through an IoT – LPWA network.
3. Adaptation of lighting settings to the population’s circadian rhythms and urban activity levels through integrated IoT sensor systems.
4. Ability to implement a verifying assessment of lighting levels across the entire public lighting infrastructure, instantly correcting the real deviations experienced by the main lighting parameters until the end of the lifespan, from the light flow to the colour temperature.
This company has received a grant from the IGAPE Galicia Export Business programme. The main objective of these grants is to encourage and stimulate Galician foreign trade and the internationalisation of Galician SMEs. The result is intended to increase the base of exporting companies in the region and to consolidate the presence of Galician companies in international markets.
