Daylighting Design for Energy Saving in a Building Global Energy Simulation Context

A study on the impact that different daylighting solutions have on the global energy demand of a space is presented. The methodology relies on dynamic simulations carried out with Daysim and EnergyPlus used in synergy to perform a parametric study to assess the indoor daylighting conditions and the energy performance of rooms with different architectural features: room depth, window size, external obstruction angle and glazing visible transmittance. Furthermore, different lighting and shading control strategies were tested. The results of the study demonstrated that optimizing daylight can lead to a reduction of up to 30% in the global energy demand for a building.