Relationship Between Daylighting Design and Artificial Lighting Energy Savings in Office Buildings

Abstract

This paper examines the quantitative design correlation of day lighting design strategies and artificial lighting energy savings in offices. As the focus on energy efficiency and the well-being of occupants has increased, the optimization of the use of natural daylight has become a major concern in sustainable architectural design. The study targets urban South Asian settings of office buildings, which require high-energy levels and climatic conditions that compound the necessity of passive lighting systems. The study follows a sample of ten office buildings with different types of design features of daylighting such as window to wall ratios, type of glazing, and spatial orientation using the lux meters and energy data loggers to track the daylight and artificial lighting consumption in a period of four weeks. A statistical analysis, which is regression based, is done to establish the degree of association between the daylight availability and reductions in electric lighting usage. Results show considerable negative dependence between daylight penetration and artificial lighting load whereby properly designed daylighting systems would achieve energy savings up to 35 per cent at the peak hours of daylight. Also, spatial orientation and window design have been observed to be significant variables that have an impact on daylight efficiency. Such findings underscore the possibility of combined daylighting measures to minimize energy requirements, increase human comforts, and sustain design measures in business buildings. The research offers useful information to the area of energy-efficient buildings and provides useful information to architects, engineers, and the facility managers that are interested in saving energy used in their operations by better incorporation of daylight.