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Topics 3 January 2019
Emergency Lighting: Safe in Case of Emergency

If the power fails and the light goes out at home, it can be very inconvenient, but it does not necessarily create a significant security risk. The situation is markedly different in a shopping center, in a cinema, at the airport or in a production facility – wherever large groups meet, a sudden lighting failure can quickly lead to critical situations. Even more dangerous is when there is a real emergency occurring at the same time, such as a fire or heavy smoke. In such cases, lighting must be used to ensure that all the people inside the building can find the quickest way out.

Legal Requirements

Understandably, there are a large number of standards and directives in Germany that set specific minimum requirements for emergency lighting, including the type of building and how it's used. Important regulations include:

  • DIN EN 1838 – Lighting applications – Emergency lighting
  • DIN EN 50171 – Central safety power supply systems
  • DIN EN 50172 – Emergency escape lighting systems
  • DIN EN 50272 – Safety requirements for batteries and battery systems
  • DIN EN 62034 – Automatic test systems for battery-operated emergency lighting for escape routes
In addition, other standards and legal requirements may be relevant. And these must always be verified for each individual installation.

Replacement lighting and safety lighting

Emergency lighting is basically divided into the two areas of replacement lighting and safety lighting.

Replacement lighting is used when there is no immediate danger to people present due to a power failure. Essentially a backup, it replaces the failed original lighting to maintain regular or, at the very least, limited operation. Typical applications for replacement lighting are surgery rooms in hospitals, control rooms in power plants or above machines and in plants that are running costly production processes.

Safety lighting has another goal. It is installed wherever the integrity of people is in focus and a building or building area must be evacuated as quickly and safely as possible. In this function, safety lighting fulfills three tasks:

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Modern Emergency Lighting with DALI and LED

Modern central emergency lighting systems take advantage of automatic tests. They also use the same lights for both general and safety lighting. This saves costs and while simultaneously creating an elegant ambiance.

And three technologies are required for this: On the one hand, lighting control gears – especially electronic ballasts (ECGs) – must be individually controllable – due to its manufacturer independence, the DALI protocol is ideal for this purpose. On the other hand, the luminaires must be suitable for generating different light scenarios – at this point, many things have become possible with the advent of LED technology.

Automation technology is needed to create an emergency lighting scenario from a general lighting system in an actual emergency. It ensures that previously defined scenarios in which certain LEDs are lit in a certain strength and color are stored and retrieved as needed.
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Optimal Production Facility Lighting at Lower Costs

WAGO Lighting Management is the intelligent solution for lighting control in large spaces such as production facilities or warehouses. Using a combination of predefined hardware and user-friendly, web-based software, WAGO Lighting Management facilitates the design and commissioning of new lighting systems and also offers numerous advantages for their operation.

Learn more
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