A simplified daylight model suitable for daylight controllers

A simpliﬁed daylight model suitable for daylight controllers

David Lindel¨of

∗

Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB)Ecole Polytechnique F´ed´erale de Lausanne (EPFL)CH-1015 Lausanne, SwitzerlandMarch 1, 2007

This paper describes a simpliﬁed daylight model suitable for low-power embeddeddaylight controllers. For a given blinds’ settings, it models indoor illuminances as alinear combination of outdoor global illuminance and outdoor diﬀuse illuminance, fora given position of the sun. A controller that implement this model needs topersistently save previous measurements of illuminance, blinds’ settings and sunpositions, and this data is used to model current illuminance values. We havevalidated this model against a Radiance model, and also implemented a daylightcontroller that adjusts the horizontal workplane illuminance to a given setpoint withthis model. This controller has been validated against a building simulator.Keywords: daylight modeling, daylight control, embedded controller

1. Motivation

Rational use of daylight is widely perceived as a key to substantial energy savings in buildings,both electrical (with daylight being preferred over artiﬁcial light) and thermal (through anoptimal use of solar gains). Bourgeois et al. (2006), for instance, report that simulations showthat building occupants that actively seek daylighting reduce overall primary energy expenditurein the perimeter zone by more than 40%.Studies have shown, however, that building occupants are very poor at making rationaluses of the daylight control devices at their disposal. Foster and Oreszczyn (2001), for example,

∗

Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 21 693.55.56; fax: +41 21 693.27.22; email: david.lindelof@epﬂ.ch

1

have monitored three offices in central London whose occupants were found to leave on average40% of the building’s glazed area occluded by their venetian blinds, without any obviouscorrelation with available sunlight. This irrational behaviour leads to an increased use of electriclighting, more than that which was assumed during the design stage.Automating the operation of these shading devices is a solution to this problem, but isdoomed to failure if the occupants’ visual comfort is not maintained. Many control algorithmsthat strive to maintain visual comfort while making an optimal use of shading devices(particularly if implemented on a low-powered, embedded controller) will need a good, simpledaylight model of the environment being controlled. The relative errors due to this model (i.e.the ratio between error and real illuminance) must be smaller than illuminance differences thehuman eye can perceive. Luckiesh and Moss (1937) cite evidence that this limit is about 50%,but even this is maybe too liberal. But few daylight modeling methods exist today that are bothaccurate and computationally cheap enough to be used on embedded hardware.This paper proposes a simplified daylight model intended for embedded daylightcontrollers. It provides a reasonably accurate daylight prediction for a controller that measuresthe indoor illuminance and the outdoor global and diffuse illuminance. When asked to predictwhat illuminance would result from a given blinds’ settings, the algorithm looks back in time andretrieves illuminance measurements that have been taken with similar blinds’ settings and asimilar sun position. The illuminance is modeled as a linear combination of outdoor global anddiffuse irradiance.In section 2 we will describe the artificial data that has been used in this study. In section3 we use this data to see if commonly used daylight illuminance prediction methods are accurateenough for a daylight controller. We will see that daylit scenes where direct sun is present cannotbe accurately modeled with such models. In section 4 we will develop a linear daylight model,valid for a given sun position. From this model we will deduce a more general model, which usesthe history of past illuminances to model the present illuminance. This model will be trainedwith a subset of our artificial data, and validated on the remaining subset, in section 5. Finally,in section 6, we will build a working daylight controller set to keep the horizontal workplaneilluminance to 500lx and assess its performance over one year.2

2. Data sets

Glossary

E

Illuminance [lx]

E

h

Horizontal illuminance [lx]

Evg

Outdoor global horizontal illuminance [lx]

Evv

Outdoor vertical facade illuminance [lx]

Eeg

Outdoor global horizontal irradiance [W/m

2

]

Ees

Direct normal irradiance [W/m

2

]

Eed

Outdoor diﬀuse horizontal irradiance [W/m

2

]

Een

Direct horizontal irradiance [W/m

2

]

DF

Daylight factor



Perez sky clearness˜



Perez sky clearness category

θ

Sun altitude

φ

Sun azimuth (0

°

is north, 90

°

is east)

φ

f

Facade normal azimuthIt is difficult if not impossible to theoretically develop a daylight model with real data.Experiments involving daylight are by nature difficult to repeat and verify, and acquiring theright amount of data takes far too long. We have therefore used a validated computer model togenerate the data we will train and test our model with.The Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory and the Fraunhofer Institute for SolarEnergy have recently collaborated within the european Ecco-Build project on the development of a daylight model for the Simbad (SIMBAD06) building simulation software. This Radiance-baseddaylight model consists of precalculated illuminances at five different positions in a simulatedoffice, for each minute of a year, with weather data files for Brussels (Belgium) and for Rome(Italy). The office is a cuboid 4

.

61

×

3

.

62

×

2

.

85m

3

in volume. These annual simulations weredone for three different office orientations (south, west, north). A roller blind or a venetian blindwas added to the simulated model, and different simulations were made for different discreteblinds’ settings.All in all, 785 annual simulations were carried out, each one yielding the five illuminancesfor every minute for the 525600 minutes in a year. Each file is 32 megabyte large, and the wholedata set represents 24 gigabytes. Jan Wienold of Fraunhofer-ISE carried out the simulations with3