A low profile lighting assembly includes a lighting fixture and a remote ballast housing mounted on a ceiling grid. The ballast housing encloses emergency ballast provides emergency power to the lighting fixture in the event of a power outage. The ballast housing can enclose a fluorescent ballast connected to one or more fluorescent lamps of the lighting fixture. The emergency ballast is recessed with respect to the top end of the ceiling grid to provide a low profile structure. Inclined side walls of the emergency ballast provide easy connection of the wiring harness and power cable to the emergency ballast while maintaining the low profile structure.