Hats off to Electrak at Royal Ascot

It may be the horses and the ladies’ hats that compete for the headlines at Royal Ascot, but Electrak won top billing when it came to selecting the power and lighting distribution systems at the racecourse.

Consulting Engineers, Buro Happold, specified Electrak’s buscom trunking and Lightrak lighting control system to ensure a flexible solution that was quick to install and could be integrated into the new stand’s building management system.

Three contractors, Mitie Engineering, Crown House Technologies, and Lauren Lloyd, installed the Electrak system which included more than 1,000m of dual circuit Electrak 32 buscom trunking, a busbar hybrid with power and an integral comms bus. In contrast to more usual commercial office applications, the installation included multiple runs of buscom trunking emanating from a central point, to accommodate the lighting power and control requirements of the new grandstand.

Mitie then installed 250 Lightrak KNX lighting control units, which simply clip onto the trunking, feeding the majority of luminaires throughout the building. The KNX units allow Ascot’s management to control lighting in zones using timed event controllers, with local switching and dimming as required.

The new stand at Ascot includes restaurants, private boxes and corporate hospitality areas, as well as the viewing terraces and betting areas, so some parts of the building are used on non-race days. With the solution Electrak has provided, managing the energy consumption is simple. What’s more, once the installation has been linked in with the building management system, control of light and power will be automatic, making the stand even more energy efficient.