New Zealand Standards

There are several standards relating to lighting and luminaires that are worth being familiar with when working with LED lighting.

AS/NZS 1680: Interior & Workplace Lighting is the main standard, and this is outlined in more detail below. Other relevant standards include AS/NZS 4219: Seismic performance of engineering systems in buildings and AS/NZS 4243: Energy Efficiency-Large Buildings-Part 2: Lighting (read more about recent changes to this standard here).

All standards are available for purchase at Standards New Zealand.

 

AS/NZS 1680: INTERIOR & WORKPLACE LIGHTING

 

Part 0 – Safe movement

 

Part 1 – General principals and recommendations

 

Part 2 – Specific applications

2.1 Circulation spaces and other general areas
2.2 Offices and screen-based tasks
2.3 Educational and training facilities
2.4 Industrial tasks and processes
2.5 Hospital and medical tasks

 

Part 3 – Measurement, calculation and presentation of photometric data

 

Part 4 – Maintenance of electric lighting systems

 

RECOMMENDED ILLUMINANCE LEVELS

The list below presents an extract from a few of these sub-sections with recommended illuminance levels for some common interior/office tasks and spaces, in lux:

TASK

LUX

General office tasks involving typing, reading, writing; Computer equipment rooms; Meeting, training and seminar rooms etc

320

Photocopying and printing rooms; Filing areas etc

240

Entrances; Entrance halls, lobbies, foyers, waiting rooms

160

Corridors, passageways, ramps

40

Staff canteens, cafeteria, dining rooms; General

160

Kitchens; Food Preparation, cooking, washing up

240

Toilets

80

Storerooms, Medium or fine material requiring care (active storage)

160