Emergency lighting system

Standards and demands

Emergency lighting, personal safety

An emergency lighting system is designed to create personal safety and With today’s modern light sources such as the T5 and compact
allow the safe evacuation of the building. An emergency lighting sys- fluorescent lamps, significantly higher demands are placed on the
tem must work faultlessly in all situations which is why high demands technology than with older light sources. For this reason Fagerhult has
are made on reliability. The system is a safety element and must be chosen to work with the major manufacturers of emergency lighting
well designed and planned. The design of emergency lighting systems components in Europe. The range includes products with different
are specified in the standards BS 5266 Parts 1 & 7 and EN 1838 De- functions and performance. An example of added functionality is the
mands are made in the standards for different environments and appli- emergency lighting system with self-test.
cation areas. Examples of different environments where demands vary
are: escape routes, anti-panic lighting and lighting of high risk areas. Fagerhult’s long-term environment strategy means that environmen-
tally hazardous battery types such as NiCd have been replaced by less
The emergency lighting system usually consists of a combination of hazardous types, for example, NiMh, when technology permits.
safety signs and general luminaires equipped with an emergency ligh-
ting function. An emergency lighting system can be either centralised BS 5266 Parts 1 & 7 and EN 1838 Lighting - Emergency lighting,
or decentralised, i.e. with a central power supply or with an integrated describes the demands made on emergency lighting in different areas.
emergency lighting solution direct in the luminaire. Primarily three different areas are included:
• Lighting of escape routes
Fagerhult has produced an extensive range of products that cor- • Lighting of open areas (anti-panic)
respond to all demands. • Lighting of high risk areas

Lighting of escape routes

”The objective of escape route lighting is to enable the safe exit from Corridor 4 m wide of which 2 m is an escape route.
a location for occupants by providing appropriate visual conditions
and direction finding on escape routes and in special locations, and to
ensure that fire fighting and safety equipment can be readily located
and used.” 1m

The above sentence means that extra emergency lighting in addition to

that lighting the route, is demanded when there are for example, split 4m
level floors, corridor crossings, stairs and rescue equipment such as fire
extinguishers.
1m
Escape routes 2 m wide require a horizontal illuminance of at least
1 lux along the centre line. The uniformity should be at least 40:1 and
glare should, at a normal ceiling height of 2.5 m, be limited to 500
cd/m2 between the angles 60-90 degrees from the vertical line. Min 0,5 lx Min 1 lx

The shortest duration for emergency lighting is 1 hour. Safety signs

to indicate the right escape route are usually included in evacuation
lighting. These are dealt with in a separate section.

A direct lighting system in the form of downlights is used in this corridor. The aim The luminous flux is reduced to 18% of the maximum output during emergency
of this design is to create good luminosity on the vertical surfaces, and average operations. Four Pleiad SLD 1x26W used as emergency luminaires have been
illuminance of 200 lux at floor level. chosen for this area. The lowest illuminance for the exit route during emergency
lighting operation is 0.5 lux

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 Emergency lighting system
Standards and demands

Lighting of open areas (anti-panic)

”The objective of open area (anti-panic) lighting is to reduce the like- This means a horizontal illuminance of at least 0.5 lux at floor level
lihood of panic and to enable safe movement of occupants towards with a uniformity of at least 40:1. The glare for this area should be
escape routes by providing appropriate visual conditions and direction limited to 500 cd/m2 between the angles 60-90 degrees from the
finding.” vertical line if the installation height of the luminaires is 2.5 m.

In this large office we have chosen a lighting system featuring MultiFive Beta The luminous flux is reduced to 9% of the maximum output during emergency
3x24W. The aim of this design is to create good luminosity on the vertical surfaces, operations. In this office area we have chosen six MultiFive Beta 3x24W as
and average illuminance of 250 lux at the working level. With the addition of task the emergency lighting luminaires. The lowest illuminance during emergency
lighting, Icon 1x18W, the illuminance on the working plane is 600 lux. lighting operation is 0.5 lux. Only 1 lamp in each emergency luminaire is lit during
emergency operation.

Lighting of high risk areas

”The objective of high risk task area lighting is to contribute to the sa-
fety of people involved in a potentially dangerous process or situation
and to enable proper shut down procedures to be carried out for the
safety of other occupants in the location”

The illuminance on the reference plane should, during emergency ope-

rations, be at least 10% of that usually demanded for the implementa-
tion of the tasks, but never lower than 15 lux. Accordingly, this means
that if 500 lx is needed for normal operations the lowest requirement
for emergency light operations is 50 lx.

In this area, glare should be limited to 1000 cd/m2 between the angles
60-90 degrees from the vertical line. This value applies to an instal-
lation height of 2.5 m. With greater installation heights a higher
luminance is permitted, e.g. 1800 cd/m2 at 3 m.

Safety signs/Exit signs

Special regulations and provisions apply for safety signs. In the product
standard EN60598-2-22 the electrical safety demands are specified. The
design of the actual symbol is specified in ISO3864/ISO7010.

General
It is extremely important that there is clear information showing where
occupants should go in the event of a power failure or other reason
that can create a dangerous situation. Therefore clear and easy to un-
derstand safety signs, should be placed in strategic positions.

Use
p

There are primarily two different types of safety signs, internally lit or
externally illuminated. As an internally lit sign is considered to be easy
d
to discern, the maximum reading distance is twice the distance of an
externally illuminated sign of the same size.
The maximum reading distance is obtained using the formula d = s x p, where d -is
the viewing distance, p- is the symbol’s (signs) height and s- is a constant: 100 for
externally illuminated signs, 200 for internally lit signs.

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 Emergency lighting system
Different designs

Products for decentralised

emergency lighting systems
Fagerhult can supply emergency lighting luminaires in different designs:
1. Basic version without self-test.
2. Version with integrated self-test (not for connection to control and
monitoring systems) that indicates faults both with audio and visual
signals.

General
Luminaire models with an integrated emergency lighting function are
available for most of our HF-luminaires. As some emergency lighting
components, for example the battery, are sensitive to heat the phy-
sical location of the components varies from luminaire to luminaire.
Some luminaires require the battery or the battery and the emergency
lighting electronics to be moved outside of the luminaire and to be
placed in a separate enclosure (battery and emergency lighting enclo-
sure). For functional reasons the emergency lighting enclosure must
be placed within 0.5 m of the luminaire. Alternatively, the battery en-
closure can be placed up to 1 m from the luminaire. Distances greater
than 1 m are not possible due to the demands in the relevant product
standard (EN60598-2-22).

Connection to the mains

Decentralised emergency lighting luminaires should normally be connec-
ted to the mains using a 4-core cable (protective earth, neutral, unswit-
ched live and switched live). This connection means the luminaire can
be switched on/off as normal and that the emergency lighting function
automatically comes in to force in the event of a power failure. Respective
unswitched lives should come from the same fuse box. If an emergency
lighting luminaire is only required to function during emergency opera-
tions or if the luminaire should be lit constantly, a 3-conductor connection
is sufficient.

Basic version
Luminaires equipped with the basic emergency conversion have • Annually a test is carried out with emergency lighting operating for
either all the necessary components fitted integrally, or are prepared 3 hours.
to accept an external remote enclosure containing the necessary If a fault is established during the testing this is indicated by the diode
components. (Emergency lighting electronics, batteries and indicating on the luminaire. If the diode is not lit this indicates a battery fault
diode.) The diode indicates that the battery is connected and that it or that there is no voltage supply to the luminaire. A flashing diode
is charging. In the event of a power failure the emergency lighting indicates that the light source is missing or defective and relamping is
automatically powers up. necessary. In addition, the emergency lighting luminaire will give an
audio alarm for 3 seconds every 35 minutes.
Version with integrated self-test, Autotest. Resetting after a service
Besides the component parts in the basic version the emergency ligh- When faults have been indicated and have been rectified the self-
ting luminaire is equipped with an integrated self-test. The self-test, test system must be reset. This is done via an on/off operation of the
which we call Autotest, is fully self-contained. No programming is ne- switched live. Switch on the switched live => Switch off as soon as the
cessary. Neither is a connection to an external PC or other supervisory light source ignites => switch the switched live on again. The system
unit. Autotest tests the luminaire regularly via an in-built “schedule” has now been reset. A check is made automatically during resetting, to
housed in the emergency lighting electronics. As it is preferable for the ensure that the emergency lighting system is functioning.
testing of emergency lighting operations to be performed when no
one is in the building, Autotest is fitted with integrated “intelligence” History
that “learns” the luminaire’s usage pattern. As the tests are normally carried out when no one is present the emer-
gency lighting electronics are equipped with a function that indicates
The self-test works as follows: how many times testing has been carried out. This is indicated by the
The “clock” built into the emergency lighting electronics starts during diode in the luminaire. 30 seconds after the luminaire is switched on
installation. Over the course of the first 37 days the electronics “learn” in normal mode the diode will flash the number of times correspon-
when the luminaire is normally switched on and off. After this period ding to the next test number. Accordingly, flashing 7 times indicates
Autotest has registered an appropriate time for the necessary tests. that the next test will be the seventh.
The following are checked during each test:
• That the luminaire is connected to the mains emLON, monitoring via LonWorks
• That the battery is connected Most emergency luminaires equipped with integrated self-test, Auto-
• That battery charging works test, can also be equipped with a node for LonWorks communications.
• That the light source for emergency operation is intact and works The status of the emergency luminaire can be read via the node and
• That the complete emergency lighting circuit is functioning testing can be initialised. Testing does not need to be pre-program-
med, as this is handled by the self-test unit’s calendar function.
How often is the test made? More information about the emLON system is available from our
• Each month a test is carried out with the emergency lighting opera- website, where you can find a program description as well as resource
ting for 5 minutes. files available for downloading.
• Every 6 months a test is carried out with the emergency lighting
operating for 1 hour.

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