Development of an optimal daylighting controller

A new lighting and daylighting control strategy is modeled and evaluated against conventional lighting and daylighting controls. The new lighting and daylighting control strategy can be incorporated in an energy management and control system (EMCS) to operate and control lighting fixtures in any indoor space. The new daylighting control can also be modeled and integrated in detailed building energy simulation tools. Through a validation analysis, it was found that the new control strategy provides more energy savings than conventional daylighting controls. Moreover, the validation analysis has indicated that existing daylighting control simulation analysis tools could overestimate lighting energy savings associated with daylighting controls. Moreover, it was also found that if calculated solar and illuminance data are used instead of measured solar radiation data, the errors in predicting lighting energy use when daylighting controls are utilized can be significant.