Letters
Wrong numbers for Danish lighting levels
I always enjoy receiving the IAEEL Newsletter and find the information you provide very useful. Unfortunatly there was an error in IAEEL Newsletter 1/98. In the survey table on pages 6-7 that provided an overview of recommended lighting levels in several countries, reported lighting levels for Denmark were too high in two cases.According to the new DS700 standard, the general lighting in offices is set at E>50 lux (not 300 lux as stated in your table!) in cases where 200 lux is prescribed for the workplace. In cases where 500 lux is prescribed for the workplace, general office lighting should provide a minimum level of 100 lux.
As for shops, DS700 requires that general lighting provide the light needed for moving around and cleaning. This is defined as a minimum of 50 lux, and where 500 lux is required at the case registers, a minimum of 100 lux must be provided by general lighting.
Vibeke Clausen, Danish Illuminating Engineering Society
Reply:We regret our mistake and have updated the table on IAEEL's web site. An interesting consequence of the correction is that the range in recommended lighting levels for a given purpose and/or area is even more pronounced now. Thus with the corrected general lighting levels in the Danish standard (which are very low) the lowest and highest recommended levels in our comparison differ by a factor of 20 for general lighting in offices and by up to 30-fold for general lighting in shops.
IAEEL Newsletter 1/98,article. Editors