How daylighting improves light and life inside commercial spaces.
By Pete Shannin
Architects and facility managers agree: harvesting natural daylight inside the workplace or school can brighten the day and the bottom line.
The payback value of daylight harvesting, which is leveraging skylights in conjunction with LED luminaires and lighting controls — reducing electric light load when skylights can make up the difference — can typically reduce electric lighting costs by a staggering 80% in retail, workplace and educational facilities. Along with energy savings, studies show the human benefits of daylighting for building occupants are similarly enlightening: reduced absenteeism, improved overall well-being and improved productivity. This is because daylighting takes smart control of natural and electric light without disrupting the user’s environment and provides better full-spectrum light — that is 100% diffused, is glare-free and produces no flicker.
Take education and retail as examples. A study initiated by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PGE) showed that students with the most daylighting in their classrooms progressed 20% faster on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests in 1 year than those with the least. Teachers and administrators enjoy such high performance, plus the results of reduced energy costs, less maintenance, better visibility and increased flexibility of how lighting is used in the classroom, gym and other spaces. In the retail space, daylighting increased sales by 40% in stores with skylights when compared to identical stores without skylights in the same study. Clearly, merchants can rely on utilizing natural daylight to support merchandise displays and provide a better in-store experience for their customers.
Daylighting Illuminates Financial and Employee Benefits
A manufacturing company obtained financial and employee benefits through better lighting when they built a warehouse with daylighting as an integral part of its design. As featured in a recent Eneref daylighting advocacy report, Karndean DesignFlooring, a Pittsburgh-based vinyl tile manufacturer, embraced daylighting to cut energy costs and enhance employee satisfaction. The design team installed prismatic skylights along with LED high bay luminaires.
Karndean’s holistic design approach to daylighting reaps the maximum benefits from natural light and energy savings. First of all, LEDs require less energy than the previous T8 fluorescent lights. Most importantly, however, Karndean’s new lighting system maximizes natural interior daylight via sensors that further reduce energy use by automatically dimming the LEDs based on the amount of daylight available. Furthermore, LED high bay fixtures include integrated controls and photo dimming sensors to not only reduce energy costs, but also help extend the life of lighting fixtures.
Karndean employees attest that installing this innovative lighting system significantly improves their work environment and their ability to best serve their customers. Chris Wettling, warehouse manager, put it well: “With the skylights mixed in with the new LED lights, it certainly makes a large difference for us, from that ability to see if there are any variances, not only in color but also in the sheen and texture of the flooring we are shipping out.” Karndean employees also confirmed that the subtle brightening or dimming of the LEDs is barely noticeable as the sunlight triggers the sensors to reduce or increase electric light output.
An Integrated Solution for Uniform Color in Common Spaces
Lighting technology continues to improve for heightened quality and aesthetics. Integrated lighting solutions can provide uniform color in common spaces such as offices, retail environments and education facilities. However, the ability to provide such a proposition utilizing daylighting has been limited until now.
As an example, a tubular prismatic daylighting solution for suspended-ceiling applications allows architects and lighting designers to maintain consistency in their color specification while taking advantage of the unique benefits of natural daylight. It uses a patented remote phosphor panel to integrate seamlessly with electric light fixtures in shared environments. The patented daylighting system achieves color temperatures similar to those utilized in commercial lighting systems by minimizing the color temperature variation between the electric and natural light sources. This enhanced color quality creates a warmer, smoother, more uniform color.
Further, architects and builders appreciate daylighting technology as it helps meet compliance with today’s building codes, which are more stringent in performance requirements for skylights and controls on electric lighting. Prismatic skylights can help architects, designers and builders achieve LEED v4 points and meet building energy codes and standards such as ASHRAE Standard 90.1, IECC and IgCC.
Taking Advantage of Daylight
Savvy business owners and commercial space managers understand the many benefits of daylighting and how taking advantage of natural light will provide better environments for people to work, shop and learn. Those who benefit from daylighting’s energy savings also enjoy the positive end results of reducing greenhouse gases and pollution. The application for daylighting — warehouse, manufacturing facility, big box retail, school, office space — is not as important as the end result: the improvement of light and life inside.
— Pete Shannin is the vice president of daylighting product solutions at Acuity Brands Lighting. Shannin is responsible for leading all aspects for product development and marketing of holistic daylighting solutions featuring prismatic skylights, LED lighting and lighting controls. Prior to this role, Shannin led the commercialization startup of the Acuity OLED lighting business, which has grown to critical acclaim, as well as leading corporate development efforts for multiple acquisitions.