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Topics January 3, 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:

Safety lighting of escape routes
to provide the fastest route to the exit from any specific location in the building

Anti-panic lighting
to prevent panic and to reach the nearest emergency route

Safety lighting for workplaces with function-specific hazards
to safely complete a presently running and potentially dangerous work process and then be able to leave the building via the escape routes.

In the event of a power failure, emergency lighting will inevitably have to resort to an alternative source of energy, usually a battery. According to their decentralized, semi-central or centralized arrangement in the building, a distinction is made between three emergency lighting systems.