Control rooms

Research on control room environments shows that most accidents happen during the night shifts – especially in the last hours of those shifts. The control room lighting plays a role in illuminating the most important parts of the panels to avoid information overload while providing the correct lighting level at times when it’s needed.

Lighting for control rooms plays an important role in regulating the operators’ circadian rhythms. Depending on the shift cycle, tuneable white luminaires or Human Centric Lighting may help adapt the operators’ inner clocks so they match a night shift schedule, or it can help to avoid switching over to a different cycle even when working at night. Both scenarios require careful control over the intensity and duration of the exposure to tuneable white light. Light also has a short-term attention-focusing effect. By boosting light intensity levels and colour temperature in short periods of time, often at the end of the night shift, the control room operators may experience alertness increases and thereby avoid losing focus and causing accidents.

 

Lighting requirements in EN 12464-1

General areas inside buildings – Control rooms

Type of task / activity area	Lux-level (Em)		Glare rating (UGRL)	Uniformity (U0)	Colour rendition (Ra)	Em,z	Em,wall	Em,ceiling	Specific requirements
	required	modified				U0 ≥ 0,10
Plant rooms, switch gear rooms	200	300	25	0,40	80	50	50	30
Telex, post room, switchboard	500	750	19	0,60	80	150	150	100
Surveillance station	300	500	19	0,60	80	100	100	75	1. Control panels are often vertical 2. Lighting should be dimmable 3. DSE-work

 

For power stations

Type of task / activity area	Lux-level (Em)		Glare rating (UGRL)	Uniformity (U0)	Colour rendition (Ra)	Em,z	Em,wall	Em,ceiling	Specific requirements
	required	modified				U0 ≥ 0,10
Control rooms	500	1000	19	0,70	80	150	150	100	1. Control panels are often vertical 2. Lighting should be dimmable 3. DSE-work