DALI Emergency: An update on standards and DALI-2 certification

March 26, 2021

The DALI Alliance recently provided an update on DALI and DALI-2 emergency lighting in a presentation to ZVEI, the German industry association.

The presentation covers the status of Part 202, the changes that are being implemented in edition 2 of the standard, and the progress towards DALI-2 certification of emergency control gear.

Part 202 of IEC 62386 describes the requirements for control gear for self-contained emergency lighting. Self-contained means that the luminaire contains the control gear and battery (or they are placed next to the luminaire).

There are four types of control gear for self-contained emergency lighting, and these allow self-testing of the lamp, battery, drive circuit and charging circuit. Optional features include automatic periodic self-testing. The main principle is to turn on the lamp when the mains is off!

The IEC 62386-202 edition 1 standard was published in 2009, and edition 2 is now at the final technical stage within IEC. The presentation looks in detail at the features of Part 202, as well as the technical differences between editions 1 and 2 of the standard.

Separately, the DALI Alliance is in the final phase of evaluating the DALI-2 tests for Part 202 emergency. The release date for the tests is expected to be around June 2021, which will then enable DALI-2 certification and trademark usage.

DALI version-1 testing has been available for several years, and there are many registered DALI version-1 emergency products in the DALI Alliance product database.