City of Oxford College
Emergency Lighting Upgrade

Activate Learning is a forward-thinking education group that aims for far-reaching, progressive change and impact through learning.

Running multiple education environments across the Oxford area, including the City of Oxford College, they support and work with individuals, helping them make the choice of career pathway or course that’s right for their ambitions.

Introduced to us by our Value Added Reseller Powercor, Activate Learning self manage facilities across the various premises they operate and were looking to implement and achieve the following:

• A reduction in their emergency lighting maintenance costs
• Improve testing and compliance levels for emergency lighting, and the associated costs in doing this.

Energy saving luminaires, long lifetime battery operation, easy networking capabilities and continual regulatory compliance reporting were clear questions that the proposed solution had to answer.

With this project requiring both internal and external light fittings within the educational environment, we already had plenty of experience working in this area with other schools and similar problems, so already had ideas and solutions to the challenge.

Firstly, and after surveying the buildings for what was needed in terms of lighting fittings, we quickly realized that our Zoneworks XT HIVE solution was the perfect choice to connect the life safety system together. This system provides the backbone to the overall solution and can connect 1000 light fittings via Dynamic Self Managed Meshing (DSM) and will save 75% of costs after installation.

The indoor and outdoor luminaires themselves were carefully specified to provide the best overall cost efficiency. Using our best-in-class LED technology products means that you can space products more effectively because of market leading light outputs which also aids the aesthetic look of the project. For the indoor part of the project a combination Lifelight Pro Recessed and Surface Mounted were specified for the emergency lighting part of the solution and Ultrablade Pro Surface Mount for fire exit signs to guide people to safety. For the outdoor solution, Circlite was specified to extend the evacuation guidance when evacuees reach this part of the building.

With the connecting system and luminaires now chosen, the lifetime of the solution was the next challenge. This meant one choice from our range of battery options –L10 Lithium Nanophosphate®. With industry leading technology delivering 50% longer life than any other battery available maintenance costs would be reduced dramatically over the lifetime of the system. Nothing else competes with L10 Nanophosphate®, due to the structure of the Nanophosphate chemistry that enables higher power, increased abuse tolerance and longer life compared to other Lithium Iron Phosphate offerings.

Customer satisfaction is always our number one priority, and the result of this installation has been very welcomed. Working in partnership with Powercor, Activate Learning now benefit from a state-of-the-art emergency lighting life safety system where maintenance costs have been reduced dramatically and BS EN50172 regulatory testing and compliance has been vastly improved by the Zoneworks XT HIVE management system.

Moreover, the site now has a 12+ year battery life expectancy which means that continual cost savings and life safety compliance will be met for the lifetime of the installed system and will also be supported by our FREE Advantage Lifetime Support (ALS)support package designed to do as it says, support the lifetime of the installation. We’re so confident in our offer that we will support you fully for its lifetime.

Also, watch this space for this ever evolving project as the Clevertronics products, systems and services have now been specified on more of the Activate Learning estates.