Most padel court investors treat lighting as the last line on the quote — "just get an electrician." Then they open the court, hold their first evening session, and watch players squint trying to track a ball coming off the back glass at head height. The fix costs more than doing it right the first time.
Padel is harder to light well than almost any other court sport. The ball travels faster, the enclosure is semi-reflective glass, and players constantly look upward at angles that point them directly toward fixtures. Get the lux wrong, or the fixture position wrong, and the problem is baked into the structure.
You do not need to be a lighting engineer to get this right. You need to know the three numbers that matter, understand one concept that is unique to padel, and ask five questions before signing off on the lighting spec.
The Lighting Standard: EN 12193
Padel courts are lit to EN 12193, a European standard for sports facility lighting that sets lux levels and uniformity ratios by class of play. "Lux" is the unit of illuminance — how much light actually falls on the playing surface. Uniformity is how evenly that light is spread: a ratio of 0.7 means the darkest measured point is at least 70% as bright as the average, so there are no patches of shadow that break play.
EN 12193 — the European Standard for sports lighting — is the reference the padel industry uses globally, including in India. FIP (the international padel federation) summarises it with a shorthand that contractors often quote: "300 lux recreational, 500 lux competition." That is accurate for outdoor play but leaves out the uniformity requirement, which is just as important as the lux number.
If a contractor quotes you a lux level without mentioning uniformity, ask. A court with 400 lux at centre and 150 lux at the corners technically averages more than 300 lux but is unplayable in those dark corners.
The Three Classes and What They Mean
EN 12193 defines three classes. Class III is recreational and training; Class II is regional competition and high-intensity training; Class I is top competition with spectators. Most Indian club courts should be built to Class II — it is the practical minimum for anyone hosting evening competitive sessions.
| Class | Outdoor lux | Indoor lux | Uniformity | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class III | 200 | 300 | 0.5–0.6 | Casual/training only |
| Class II | 300 | 500 | 0.7 | Club competition, high training |
| Class I | 500 | 750 | 0.7 | Top competition, spectators |
| TV / broadcast | ≥1000 vertical lux | — | Broadcast cameras | |
The critical difference between Class III and Class II is not just the lux number — it is the uniformity. At 0.5 uniformity (Class III), players at one end of the court may have noticeably less light than the other. At 0.7 (Class II), the court reads as evenly lit across all four corners. For any competitive use — inter-club matches, leagues, coaching with video — Class II is the correct spec.
Building to Class III and hoping to upgrade later is expensive. The mast positions, wiring runs, and transformer sizing are determined at construction. Retrofitting from 200 lux to 300 lux typically means adding fixtures to existing masts or repositioning them — not just swapping bulbs.
How Many Fixtures, How High, How Powerful
A standard padel court needs 4–8 LED fixtures, each 150–200W, mounted at 6–7m height and angled inward. That totals roughly 1.2–1.6 kW per court for Class II illumination. The exact count depends on the fixture's beam angle and the target uniformity — more fixtures at moderate output give better uniformity than fewer high-power lamps.
Mounting height matters more than most contractors explain. Below 6m and the direct-glare angle drops into the playing zone — players looking up at the back glass will see the fixture. Above 7–8m and you need more watts to reach the required lux at surface level. The 6–7m range is the practical optimum for a padel enclosure height of 4–6m.
For an indoor court where the hall ceiling is 8m or higher, the fixture count and watt requirement change. Indoor courts also need higher lux by class (300/500/750 instead of 200/300/500) because there is no ambient sky contribution — all light comes from the fixtures. See the indoor lux column in the table above.
LED specifications that matter beyond wattage:
- CRI (colour rendering index): ≥70 for outdoor courts, ≥80 for indoor. CRI measures how accurately colours appear under the light. A low CRI (≤65) makes the yellow-green padel ball harder to read against a dark background.
- CCT (colour temperature): 4000–6000K. This is the "warmth" of the light — 4000K is neutral white, 6000K is cool daylight. Both work; avoid warm-toned (3000K) fixtures, which reduce contrast.
Vertical Glare: The Padel-Specific Problem
Padel has a glare problem that most other court sports don't. Players regularly track balls that come off the back glass at steep angles, which points their eyes directly toward the upper corners of the enclosure — exactly where fixtures are mounted. The glass walls then reflect that fixture light back into the court, doubling the glare exposure.
In football or tennis, players look predominantly across the horizontal playing field. In padel, the glass walls mean the ball is in play at heights of 3–4m and players look sharply upward during back-glass rallies and lob retrieval. A fixture at 6m positioned without anti-glare shielding sits directly in that sight line.
The solution is not simply to reduce brightness. It is to use fixtures with asymmetric reflectors or anti-glare louvres designed for enclosed courts, positioned so the brightest beam illuminates the surface — not the players' eyes. Padel-specific LED fixtures from established suppliers address this. Generic industrial or warehouse floodlights do not, regardless of lux output.
Mini-story — Gurgaon, 2025. A sports club installed four 200W generic industrial floodlights at 5.5m to keep the lighting budget under ₹60,000. Lux at surface read 250 on average — technically close to Class II. But the fixture beam angle was wide and un-shielded. In back-glass rallies, players reported seeing double-image glare off the glass. By month three, three members had escalated complaints. The club had two options: add anti-glare louvres (available, but tricky retrofit) or replace the fixtures with padel-spec units — which cost ₹1.1 lakh. The original saving of ₹40,000 cost three times that to fix.