Daylighting

Daylighting is the controlled admission of natural

light into a space through windows to reduce or
eliminate electric lighting.
By providing a direct link to the dynamic and
perpetually evolving patterns of outdoor
illumination, daylighting helps create a visually
stimulating and productive environment for
building occupants, while reducing as much as
one-third of total building energy costs.

Benefits of Daylighting
Daylighting has the potential to significantly
improve life-cycle cost, increase user
productivity, reduce emissions, and reduce
operating costs:
Improved Life-Cycle Cost: Increased User
Productivity: Daylight enlivens spaces and has
been shown to increase user satisfaction and
visual comfort leading to improved performance.

 Reduced Emissions: By reducing the need for

electric consumption for lighting and cooling, the
use of daylight reduces greenhouse gases and
slows fossil fuel depletion.
Reduced Operating Costs: Electric lighting
accounts for 35 to 50 percent of the total
electrical energy consumption in commercial
buildings. By generating waste heat, lighting
also adds to the loads imposed on a building's
mechanical cooling equipment.

 The energy savings from reduced electric

lighting through the use of daylighting strategies
can directly reduce building cooling energy
usage an additional 10 to 20 percent.
Consequently, for many institutional and
commercial buildings, total energy costs can be
reduced by as much as one third through the
optimal integration of daylighting strategies.

The light entering a room is a result of

direct (from the sun) or
indirect (reflected and diffuse) radiation.
In an average room the light will be strong near
the windows, where the component of direct light
is high,
and weaker further inside the room, where most
of the light is a result of reflection from surfaces
within the room itself

Location of windows on the plan

Efficient utilization and

uniformity of light improve if
the window is located close to
a side wall in the room,
because of reflection from the
wall.
Columns between the
windows reduce light
uniformity.
A higher placement of the
window in the room (in
section) will give a lower level
of light at the level of work
surfaces but greater uniformity
of light because of reflection

 A nearly uniform lighting

level within the building
space may be achieved
by adding sources of light
far from the window. This
can be done either by
artificial lighting or by
natural light from a
parallel wall or the ceiling.
Combining artificial and natural lighting

 Bringing the window closer to the ceiling causes

higher average light intensity and more uniform
lighting in the room.

Daylight designs techniques:

A number of design strategies should be

understood and explored during the design
process. These strategies are briefly described
below.
Increase perimeter daylight zonesextend the
perimeter footprint to maximize the usable day
lighting area.
Allow daylight penetration high in a space.
Windows located high in a wall or in roof
monitors and clerestories will result in deeper
light penetration and reduce the likelihood of
excessive brightness.

 Slope ceilings to direct more light into a space.

Sloping the ceiling away form the fenestration
area will help increase the surface brightness of
the ceiling further into a space.
Avoid direct beam daylight on critical visual
tasks. Poor visibility and discomfort will result if
excessive brightness differences occur in the
vicinity of critical visual tasks.
Filter daylight. The harshness of direct light can
be filtered with vegetation, curtains, louvers, or
the like, and will help distribute light.

 Reflect daylight within a space to increase room

brightness. A light shelf, if properly designed,
has the potential to increase room brightness
and decrease window brightness.
Understand that different building
orientations will benefit from different
daylighting strategies; for example light
shelves which are effective on south
faades are often ineffective on the east
or west elevations of buildings.

Materials and Methods of

Construction
Exterior Shading and Control Devices:
In hot climates, exterior shading devices
often work well to both reduce heat gain
and diffuse natural light before entering
the work space. Examples of such devices
include light shelves, overhangs,
horizontal louvers, vertical louvers, and
dynamic tracking or reflecting systems.

 Glazing Materials: The simplest method to maximize

daylight within a space is to increase the glazing area.
However, three glass characteristics need to be
understood in order to optimize a fenestration system: Uvalue, Shading Coefficient, and Visible Transmittance.
U-value represents the rate of heat transfer due to temperature
difference through a particular glazing material.
Shading Coefficient (SC) is a ratio of solar heat gain of a given
glazing assembly compared to double-strength, single glazing.
[NB: A related term, Solar Heat Gain Factor (SHGF), is
beginning to replace the term Shading Coefficient.]
Visible Transmittance (Tvis) is a measure of how much visible
light is transmitted through a given glazing material.

 Aperture Location: Simple side lighting

strategies allow daylight to enter a space and
can also serve to facilitate views and ventilation.
A rule-of-thumb is that the depth of daylight
penetration is about two and one-half times the
distance between the top of a window and the
sill.

 Reflectance of Room Surfaces: Reflectance

values for room surfaces will significantly impact
daylight performance and should be kept as high
as possible.
It is desirable to keep ceiling reflectances over
80%, walls over 50%, and floors around 20%.
Of the various room surfaces, floor reflectance
has the least impact on daylighting penetration.

Integration with Electric Lighting Controls: A

successful daylighting design not only optimizes
architectural features, but is also integrated with
the electric lighting system. With advanced
lighting controls, it is now possible to adjust the
level of electric light when sufficient daylight is
available. Three types of controls are
commercially available:
Switching controlson/off controls simply turn
the electric lights off when there is ample
daylight.
Stepped controlsprovide intermediate levels of
electric lighting by controlling individual lamps
within a luminaire.
Dimming controlscontinuously adjust electric
lighting by modulating the power input to lamps
to complement the illumination level provided by
daylight.

Daylight designs

Windows
Windows are the most
common way to admit daylight
into a space.
Their vertical orientation
means that they selectively
admit sunlight and diffuse
daylight at different times of
the day and year.
Therefore windows on multiple
orientations must usually be
combined to produce the right
mix of light for the building,
depending on the climate and
latitude

Light shelves
Special light shelves in
the windows ensure
energy efficiency and
comfort by deflecting
natural light into the
rooms and reflecting it off
the ceiling to light the
room and reduce the heat
of direct sunlight. Interior
lights include motion
sensors that
automatically turn lights
on and off as people
enter and exit a room.

 Reflectors placed on
the outside of a
building absorb and
reflect the sun's rays.
By adjusting the angle
of the panel, the
brightness and
direction of the sun's
light can be
controlled.

skylight
Skylights are often used for
daylighting.
Skylights admit more light per
unit area than windows, and
distribute it more evenly over a
space.
The optimum number of
skylights (usually quantified as
"effective aperture") varies
according to climate, latitude,
and the characteristics of the
skylight, but is usually 1-10%
of floor area.
The thermal performance of
skylights is affected by
stratification, i.e. the tendency
of warm air to collect in the
skylight wells, which in cool
climates increases the rate of
heat loss.

Light tubes

Light tubes or light pipes are

used for transporting or
distributing natural or artificial
light. In their application to day
lighting, they are also called solar
pipes, daylight pipes, or solar
light pipes.
Generally speaking, a light pipe
or light tube may refer to:
a tube or pipe for transport of light
to another location, minimizing the
loss of light;
a transparent tube or pipe for
distribution of light over its length,
either for equidistribution along the
entire length

 A round tube lined with

highly reflective material
leads the light rays
through a building,
starting from an entrancepoint located on its roof or
one of its outer walls.
The entrance point
usually comprises a
dome (cupola), which has
the function of collecting
and reflecting as much
sunlight as possible into
the tube.

Light transmission
efficiency is greatest if the
tube is short and straight.
In longer, angled, or
flexible tubes, part of the
light intensity is lost

 Solar energy is the utilization of the radiant

energy from the Sun.
Solar energy and shading are important
considerations in building design.
Thermal mass is used to conserve the heat that
sunshine delivers to all buildings.
Daylighting techniques optimize the use of light
in buildings.
Solar water heaters heat swimming pools and
provide domestic hot water.

 Solar technologies such as photovoltaics

and water heaters increase the supply of
energy and may be characterized as
supply side technologies
Sunlight has influenced building design
since the beginning of architectural history.

Solar water heaters

Why should one go for solar water
heating?
Because-- Solar water heaters save
electricity
they are clean and green

How do they work?

A typical domestic solar water heater consists of a hot
water storage tank and one or more flat plate collectors.
The collectors are glazed on the sun facing side to allow
solar radiation to come in.
A black absorbing surface (absorber) inside the flat plate
collectors absorbs solar radiation and transfers the
energy to water flowing through it.
Heated water is collected in the tank which is insulated
to prevent heat loss.
Circulation of water from the tank through the collectors
and back to the tank continues automatically due to
density difference between hot and cold water

Flat plate collectors

Solar water heaters based on
Flat plate Collectors (FPC based
SWH)

Flat Plate Collector based Solar

Water Heaters

Here the solar radiation is

absorbed by flat plate
collectors which consist of an
insulated outer metallic box
covered on the top with glass
sheet.
Inside there are blackened
metallic absorber (selectively
coated) sheets with built in
channels or riser tubes to carry
water.
The absorber absorbs the
solar radiation and transfers
the heat to the flowing water.

Evacuated Tube Collector

based Solar Water
Heater

Here the collector is

made of double layer
borosilicate glass tubes
evacuated for providing
insulation.
The outer wall of the
inner tube is coated with
selective absorbing
material.
This helps absorption of
solar radiation and
transfers the heat to the
water which flows
through the inner tube.

Hot water storage tank

The hot water storage tank in domestic solar water heating systems is
typically a double walled tank.
The space between the inner and the outer tanks is filled with insulation to
prevent heat losses.
The inner tank is generally made of copper or stainless steel to ensure long
life.
The outer tank could be made of stainless steel sheet, painted steel sheet
or aluminum.
Electrical heating elements controlled by thermostats can be provided as an
option in the tank itself to take care of those days when sun is not there or
demand of water has gone up.
The capacity of the tank should be in proportion to the collector area used in
the system.
A commonly used thumb rule is to provide 50 litres of storage for every sq.
m of collector area. Too large or too small tanks are both detrimental to
efficiency.

 Photovoltaics is the direct

conversion of light into
electricity at the atomic
level. Some materials
exhibit a property known
as the photoelectric effect
that causes them to
absorb photons of light
and release electrons.
When these free
electrons are captured,
an electric current results
that can be used as
electricity.

Solar cells are made of the same kinds

of semiconductor materials, such as
silicon, used in the microelectronics
industry.
For solar cells, a thin semiconductor
wafer is specially treated to form an
electric field, positive on one side and
negative on the other.
When light energy strikes the solar
cell, electrons are knocked loose from
the atoms in the semiconductor
material.
If electrical conductors are attached to
the positive and negative sides,
forming an electrical circuit, the
electrons can be captured in the form
of an electric current -- that is,
electricity. This electricity can then be
used to power a load, such as a light
or a tool.

 Photovoltaic Module or
Array
A number of solar cells
electrically connected to each
other and mounted in a
support structure or frame is
called a photovoltaic module.
Modules are designed to
supply electricity at a certain
voltage, such as a common 12
volts system.
The current produced is
directly dependent on how
much light strikes the module.