What is Emergency Lighting?
Emergency lights have one primary purpose—to guide and direct people toward an exit in case of an emergency situation. These situations include, but are not limited to:
- Power outages (or electric failures)
- Widespread blackouts
- Fires
The importance of emergency lights cannot be stressed enough. Modern emergency lighting is required in every commercial facility or high occupancy residency, and AEG can help you through the process of installing emergency lighting.
Commercial Emergency Power Failure Lights
A commercial emergency power failure light is actually simple in concept. It contains batteries which are constantly charged through a fixture connected to the main power supply. If the connection to the power supply is lost during an emergency, the system switches over to battery power and turns the lights on.
Modern emergency lighting consists of one or more incandescent bulbs or multiple groupings of high intensity light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
Features of Emergency Lighting
Emergency lighting is unique in the sense that most of it is not in use but must be continuously ready for potential use. Because of this, modern emergency lighting is designed to last for a long time.
All units have some sort of device to intensify the light they produce. That intensified light source can be turned and pointed to where light is needed in case of an emergency. Modern systems tend to operate with low voltage to reduce the size of batteries or lower the load required from the circuit to which it is wired.
Maintained vs. Non-maintained
The two main types of emergency lighting are maintained and non-maintained. Maintained lights are used during everyday business and remain on at all times, therefore they are powered by the main electrical supply. On the other hand, non-maintained lights only activate when the power is cut during an emergency. They are used to light the way to an egress point.
The emergency lighting that you’re probably the most familiar with are exit signs. These signs are always lit, so they fall under the category of maintained. There are also emergency exit combo signs, which are a multi-purpose solution for any applications that require an exit sign and an emergency light in a single location.
No matter what type of emergency lighting you need, we can help. If your current system is outdated, Advanced Energy Group can install a more energy efficient LED system. All you have to do is contact us for a no-cost energy assessment.
