Controlling the light in a landmark building

A £300 000 lighting-management system has been installed as part of the recent major renovation of the Empress State Building near Earls Court in London. The D-bus system from Eaton’s MEM division controls 9500 lighting fittings throughout the building. Over 7000 of them are dimmable fluorescent luminaires and downlights. Lighting levels are continuously adjusted in response to changes in ambient lighting. Automatic time controls and PIR presence detectors help optimise energy savings. The D-bus system is based on LonWorks and controlled from a PC. The system backbone is a 2-wire data-bus network linking the PC, via routers, to a network of floor controllers in this 30-storey building. From the floor controllers, a floor network communicates with lighting-control models (LCMs) and other network products. Each LCM has addressable relays which are connected to luminaires or lighting circuits. Local input devices such as sensors or switches can be connected to the LCMs or floor controllers. The MEM equipment was integrated into Trox multi-service chilled beams, each of which includes two pairs of T5 fluorescent luminaires controlled by a 2-channel LCM and PIR.

Related links:

• www.memonline.com