Emergencies such as fires or mains power failures necessitate emergency lighting which illuminates automatically, especially along escape routes enabling people to vacate a building quickly and safely.
Emergency Lighting
Our dedicated range of products is designed and manufactured in compliance with the British Standard EN 50171 for use in buildings subject to strict fire prevention standards.
Our Central Power Supply Systems (CPSS) and UPS are installed in thousands of schools, hospitals, shopping centres, and other public buildings throughout the UK.
There are three basic types of emergency lighting:
- Non-maintained – Emergency lighting only illuminates in the event of a mains failure.
- Maintained – Emergency lighting remains illuminated at all times using the same lamps for both normal and emergency operation.
- Sustained – The emergency lighting is fitted with two lamps. One operates on mains AC supply, the other operates from a battery supply in the event of mains failure. This is essentially a non-maintained system with the addition of mains lamps that should be illuminated whenever a building is occupied.
In the event of blackout, our emergency UPS powers a range of emergency systems including:
- Emergency lighting
- Automatic fire prevention systems
- Alarms
- Emergency detection systems
- Smoke extraction equipment
- Carbon monoxide detectors
Such critical applications require a combination of resilience, ease of use, and regulatory compliance. Our emergency systems meet these factors thanks to features including:
- Autonomy of up to three hours (longer available on request)
- Battery recharge time under 12 hours
- Battery monitoring system
- Optional galvanic isolation of input and output
- Advanced diagnostics with user-friendly display panel
- High short circuit current
EN 50171: Central Battery Systems
EN 50171 European legislation specifies the general requirements for central power supply systems governing independent energy supply to essential safety equipment. This standard covers systems permanently connected to AC supply voltages and using batteries as the alternative power source.
Emergency lighting is prone to high inrushes and power surges.
To cope with this demand, static inverters must be able to operate at continuous overload without affecting the load or their stability. Batteries are required to attain an 80% recharge rate within 12 hours and must provide three hours of run time after being fully discharged every 12 months.
Therefore it’s important to select the most suitable range of static inverters that meet standards above and beyond EN 50171 requirements.