KNX intelligent lighting control at the Ashmolean

Lighting within the Ashmolean Museum, now re-opened after a major redevelopment, is being controlled by KNX intelligent building technology.

The installation was designed and supplied by KNX UK member, Andromeda Telematics.

It offers energy savings, flexibility for future changes and the automated testing of a public building out of hours.

The specification of a powerful graphical head end display shows the real time status of all lighting throughout the museum, maximising the potential energy savings for lighting and the use of natural daylight.

KNX was specified by the consulting engineers to achieve the complicated lighting control strategies required.

KNX also offers the facility for limitless expansion and the ability to specify and seamlessly integrate the most appropriate KNX compliant products from different manufacturers.

The building includes 39 new galleries, staircases, entrances, bridges, walkways and a cafe within which the lighting is controlled via KNX.

In addition, lighting in back of house areas including offices, laboratories, toilets and the boardroom are also managed with KNX.

Across the six levels in the public areas there are 18 lighting control panel locations to match the electrical distribution zones.

Each panel houses a variety of equipment to meet the requirements of the project's lighting designers and emergency lighting for each area.

The galleries mainly consist of around 500 switched circuits for ceiling mounted track lighting, feature lighting and display cases.

These are switched using 16A C-load actuators and the track circuits are monitored for mains failure.

In the event of a local circuit failure, the emergency lighting within the immediate area is activated instantly.

The Dali controlled LED emergency lighting enabled the design team to reduce the capacity of the static inverter, achieving light levels in excess of regulations and including full test and monitoring of the emergency lighting.

All non-maintained emergency lighting is activated immediately prior to a static inverter discharge test to provide the full load required.

The system is returned to normal after the test and any fitting failures or static inverter faults are reported.

The galleries also benefit from local control switches for out of time schedule operation and in selected areas occupancy detectors are used to reduce lighting loads.

The two main public staircases have concealed cold cathode lighting detail that is controlled via scene selection and daylight linking to make the most of the considerable natural light gains.

An internal lux sensor provides accurate measurement to allow the dimmer units to control accordingly.

Both these staircases have large areas of glass that generally provide good levels of natural lighting, however direct sunlight has to be restricted.

A sun tracking model closes the blinds when the external lux levels are high and the position of the sun makes direct sunlight an issue.

The non-public spaces are fitted with occupancy detection and dimming control benefiting again from Dali lighting.

As with the public areas' emergency lighting, this also provides the ability to monitor the lighting in real time for lamp or ballast failures.

During the scheduled emergency light testing intervals, a report is generated for any inverter, battery or lamp failures on all the self-contained fittings.

The KNX/Dali gateway provides the high level functionality that the system demanded.

Back to top