Continuous availability lighting systems: the led solution by design

Lighting systems with a large number of luminaires in large rooms are a case of uniformly distributed loads (UDLs) that need configurations with modularity whenever possible, to ensure an easier installation, management and maintenance. The LED luminaires give a great impact on the system configuration due to the high inrush currents of the ac/dc switching power supplies. This paper proposes the criteria to design the supplying distribution of numerous LED luminaires configured in a modular scheme of a main AC distribution and a branch DC distribution that connects luminaires clusters as dual corded equipment with double power supply and double control type, digital and analogic. The suggested scheme aims to provide a system structure that allows overcoming fault situations by design and doing maintenance activities limiting and recovering the tier degradation. The system configuration in case of failure of smart components allows inhibiting all them to enable a manual management. In this way, the lighting system of special locations (as institutional, for congress or entertainment) can satisfy the requirement of continuous availability system. In order to provide more details on the proposed design criteria this paper describes as case study the lighting system of a large congress room.