Achieving energy and cost savings through simple daylighting control in tropical historic buildings

• Lighting simulation tools provide photo-metrically accurate renderings of a lighting environment offering designers both qualitative and quantitative information about their designs.
• This study offers a first step towards integrating the hardware and software elements of daylighting system throughout the major phases of building life cycles.

Electricity is an important element used to run plant, lighting and other equipment in buildings. An appropriate well-designed lighting system is required for energy saving since the lighting consumption is dependent on the activities of the occupants of the buildings. Lighting consumption in a building can be affected by the building's purpose, the use of daylight, illumination levels and hours of usage by the occupants. The present study aims at accentuating the use of computational modeling techniques towards significantly improving the effectiveness of daylighting control on energy and cost savings for historic office buildings. For this purpose, lighting performance of the Klang District Historic Office building in Malaysia was investigated through a simple daylighting control. The present study was carried out to investigate the lighting performance in a historic office building which is known as the Klang District Historic Office. Lighting performance is assessed using a simulation modeling that includes artificial lighting, daylighting, sun position, weather statistics, sky type, shading and a 3D Model. The study found that almost all cellular offices are adequately served by daylighting but that open plan offices needs some artificial lighting to supplement inadequate daylighting. The results are presented and the approaches for energy saving discussed.