DALI Lighting Awards 2023

Infrastructure

This is a blockbuster project that appeared in the latest Mission Impossible film.

The project is claimed to be the largest DALI control system in the world, with a single site-wide DALI network that manages and monitors the general lighting, self-contained emergency lighting and central battery emergency lighting.

The terminal was designed with everything functioning off a digital-first grid, making DALI the natural choice for the lighting control system.

The system comprises 180,000 DALI lamps, 35,000 DALI emergency lamps, 10,000 DALI sensors and switches, all coordinated by 3400 single and multi-universe DALI control modules.

The system interfaces with the building management system (BMS) and the Emergency, Fire Alarm, and AV systems via BACnet/IP.

DALI enables extensive use of daylight-harvesting and occupancy-based control, and also scene-setting either automatically or via user control in specialist areas.

There’s an innovative use of DALI in the arrival halls to illuminate either red or green LEDs on the turnstiles, via an interface with the immigration control portal.

The DALI network shares real-time intelligence with the BMS on occupancy, lighting levels, and operational status as well as active lamp, driver & module failure data. The system flags failures in real time, enabling rapid maintenance, and generates relamping plans for proactive replacement of luminaires.

Commissioning of such a large project was challenging, especially during the pandemic. Here, the modular DALI approach and distributed intelligence architecture enabled phased commissioning and addressing, even before the site-wide IP network was up and running.

Judges were very impressed by the sheer scale of the network and the exemplary use of a broad range of DALI features, all contributing to the airport’s emphasis on passenger experience, sustainability and energy efficiency.

Participants:

Architect: Kohn Pederson Fox Associates
Client: Abu Dhabi Airport Company
Planning Consultant: Aecom
M&E Consultant: Arup
Electrical Contractor: Anel
DALI lighting controls: Delmatic