ROOM ILLUMINATION BY CONTROLLED SUNLIGHT

W. POHL and CH. ANSELM

Bartenbach LichtLabor GmbH,

Rinner Straße 14, A-6071 Aldrans/Innsbruck

ABSTRACT

A heliostat is a movable mirror which tracks the sun as it crosses the sky, thus constantly reflecting direct
sunlight to any desired location within the building by means of other fixed mirrors. Due to high engineering
and installation costs and due to the lack of appropriate and supplementary artificial lighting systems,
current heliostats are suitable to date only for effect illumination. Furthermore, no appropriate system
components are yet available on the market which are able to distribute the incoming sunlight according to
indoor lighting requirements.

The Research Feasibility Study done by Bartenbach LichtLabor and Bomin Solar with funds of the
European Community showed that it is possible to use Sun Lighting Systems economically and with energy
savings for room illumination instead of conventional artificial lighting on condition that the room is not
daylit and the sun shine probability is high (> 40%). This requires the use of high quality components,
especially a sun-tracking heliostat. But at the moment such Sun Lighting Systems are not appliable in a
widespread way due to high investment costs and due to the lack of approriate components.
In a subsequent Research Project a pilot installation will prove this feasibility.

KEYWORDS

Solar energy; illumination by solar radiation; sunlighting; thermal and visual comfort; daylighting; renewable
energy; CO2 reduction; sustainability;

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Our ‘Sun Lighting System’ (SLS) consists of three main parts: the movable heliostat, the distribution system
and the sun-luminaires. In the case of replacing the conventional artificial lighting system by a SLS we need
a solar simulator for substituting the sun if absent.

For the commercialisation we have to meet the following requirements:

1) reduction of investment costs (especially for the heliostat down to one third)
2) increase of efficiency of the whole system by the factor two
3) the provision of suitable components (indoor distribution systems and sun-luminaires)
 4) the provision of a solar simulator (optional) with three times the efficiency of today.

The heliostat is (besides the solar simulator) the most important part of the Sun Lighting System regarding
ist energy consumption. Its improvement regarding energy consumption and costs (600 kWh/year > 100
kWh/year, 1/3 costs) is essential.
With this technology we can save up to 60% of the energy consumption for lighting and cooling (higher
visual efficiency than artificial light) in special buildings.

This technology uses renewable energy instead of high quality electrical energy, furthermore the
environmental and living quality is strongly increased.

Components of a Sun Lighting System (schematic)

1) heliostat (sun tracking) 5) light extracting link

2) light concentrator 6) sun luminaire
3) light entry link 7) solar simulator
4) light channel 8) transparent protection dome

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS FROM THE FEASIBILITY STUDY

Feasibility

It is feasible to save energy by installing a solar lighting system (ecological aspect) and to illuminate rooms
in an economical way (economic aspect). The rooms concerned have to be used predominantly during the
day and may not be illuminated by daylight (no big daylight openings such as windows, skylights, etc.);
moreover, the probability of sunshine should be as high as possible (> 40%).
It is not yet possible to implement such systems because the costs are much too high and the technical
components are not available. The systems used today serve mainly the purpose of producing additional,
intensive sunlight effects and thus of creating a special atmosphere of illumination in entrance halls, lobbies,
subterranean passages, etc., but they are not meant to illuminate entire rooms.

The Feasibility Study has shown that every system has to be planned and optimised carefully and
individually; there are no universal solutions. Any statement about profitability and saving of energy has to
be an individual one considering one specific system.

Renewable Energy and Quality of Life

The arguments in favour of a solar lighting system are as follows:

a) Top-quality electrical energy may be saved by using primary energy available free of charge (= sunlight)
for illumination purposes
b) The cooling loads in the building are reduced because efficiency of sunlight (IR filtered) is considerably
higher than that of artificial light (approximately 150 to 200 lm/W as compared to approximately 50
lm/W for artificial light). The cooling load may be lowered from approximately 10 - 15 W/m² to
approximately 3 W/m², which saves energy and costs in respect of a cooling system (possibly
investment costs as well).
At present, approximately 500 billion kWh/year of electrical energy are consumed only for the
illumination of buildings in Europe; the potential savings per installation amount to between 20% and
60% (depending on the system concerned). Depending on how wide-spread this solar lighting
technology is, the potential savings of energy may amount to up to approximately 1 billion kWh/year.
c) Another important argument speaking for this technology is the enormous increase in the quality of life
and the environment on account of the use of sunlight. Studies in the UK, in Germany and in
Switzerland have shown that there are many people nowadays whose health is affected by a lack of
sunlight and daylight, especially if they work on a computer (the so-called daylight deficiency
syndrome).

Visual Perception and Effects on People's Health

The relevant literature does not show whether the sunlight transported into a room by means of a heliostat
system (spectrum, no flickering) presents visual and health-related advantages as compared to artificial
lighting, which would be desirable in order to reduce the stress symptoms determined at insufficient levels of
daylight.

The decisive question is whether the sunlight, which may, for example, be directed into a room via an
opening in the ceiling in a similar way as if coming from a lamp, is actually still perceived as sunlight, and
whether the generally assumed advantages of daylight are still felt when the typical properties of daylight
(parallelism, intensity, ...) and the reference to the environment outdoors are missing.

These effects of a heliostat lighting system have to be examined in an experiment expressly set up for that
purpose.

Development Goals and Technologies Applied

Energy savings (and profitability) may be achieved only if optimised technologies are used. This is why an
optimised heliostat system (which is high in expenditure but very efficient) is to be preferred to simplified
(e.g. fixed) systems.
One of the most important development goals is to make this heliostat more efficient and to lower its costs.

The reduction of the costs of automatic guidance (energy, at present approximately 600 kWh/year) to less
than 100 kWh/year and the reduction of the costs to at least 1/3 of the current costs (ECU15,000 to 30,000,
depending on the size) are goals to be aimed at.

In the event of a transport of sunlight without a guidance system (only by means of reflection mirrors) a
tolerance of flatness and guidance of less than 0.1° on total is required (at present the value is approximately
0.7°). The current mirror sizes are generally sufficient (approximately 105 to 106 lm).

The heliostat (in addition to a solar simulator, if any) is currently the most important component in a solar
lighting system as far as costs and energy are concerned.

Transport without a light guidance system (no concentration in a light pipe, only flat reflection mirrors) is
suitable only for short lengths of transmission; a solar simulator may not be used in this case for economic
and energetic reasons.

In the event of transport with a guidance system (concentration in a light pipe) a solar simulator may be
used, the pipe diameter is approximately 30 cm, the lengths of transmission amount to up to 30 m (more is
possible only if certain technical conditions are met).

A solar simulator may be used in an economical and energy-saving way only in the presence of guided light
transport (with light pipes). Continuous energising is not yet possible, this requires completely innovative
technologies to be developed. In order to be able to construct solar simulators that resemble the sunlight
(radiation angle, spectrum), we need cost-efficient lamps with a torch illuminance of L = 109 cd/m² (e.g.
xenon lamps), which are not available on the market at present.

Profitability

The annual energy costs of artificial light amount currently to approximately 2 - 10 % of the investment
costs of the system concerned. The energy-saving potential of artificial-light systems, which may well be
considerable if seen from the point of view of energy (approximately 10 - 20% of the total energy
consumption), however, is of lower importance from the economic point of view (in consideration of the
current energy prices).
Savings of an energy consumption level that low thus influences the profitability of a given system only to a
limited degree; what is decisive, however, are the investment costs (approximately DEM100/m² at present).

As a matter of principle, the profitability and the energy-saving potential of a certain system are opposing
each other. The best energy balance is achieved if an energy-optimised sunlighting system (without a solar
simulator) is installed together with an energy-optimised artificial-light system.

In this case, however, profitability is poor since both systems will have to be invested.

If the artificial-light system is replaced by the solar simulator, the economic balance improves considerably
while the energetic balance (bad efficiency of artificial lighting) deteriorates considerably.

The investment required for a common artificial-light system amounts to approximately DEM100/m², that
for a heliostat system to approximately DEM600/m².
If the investment costs for a heliostat system are lowered to 1/3 or less, such a system can be cost-efficient if
the energy-saving and additional maintenance costs are taken into account.