Analysis of Electrical Energy Savings From Daylighting Through Skylights

This paper provides a simplified analysis tool to assess the energy saving potential of daylighting for commercial buildings through skylights. Specifically, the impact of daylighting is investigated for various fenestration opening sizes, glazing types, control strategies, and geographic locations. A top floor of a prototypical office building has been considered in the analysis. The results obtained for the office building can be applied to other types of buildings such as retails stores, schools, and warehouses. Based on the simulation analysis results, it was determined that skylight to floor ratio more than 0.3 does not affect significantly the lighting energy savings. An optimum value of skylight to floor area ratio was found to be 0.2 to minimize the annual total building energy use.