Who Do Daylight Harvesting Projects Succeed or Fail?

Recently, the sustainable design movement has given daylighting a comeback in the mainstream construction industry. Daylighting, a practice that has been vital for energy conservation and easy illumination for centuries, can be defined as "the use of daylight as a primary source of illumination to support human activity in a space."

Examples of daylighting in architecture.
Source: http://bit.ly/1PxN13t

Daylighting is an extremely useful tool, as it promotes limited use of electricity and efficient design methods. Yet, some daylighting projects are not as successful as others. David Eijadi from The Weidt Group, an energy design consulting firm, highlights the main reasons why some daylighting projects may fail:

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• Lack of coordination or understanding between the different design disciplines concerning the daylighting control system.
• Improper location of controls.
• Inadequate specification of the controls systems, component parameters, and sequence of operations.
• Shop drawings made by contractors that detail the system are not checked, or the lighting designer does not know what to check.
• Field changes to tune a system are not documented and taken back to the designer to complete the feedback loop.

These problems result in common failure modes, such as:

• Under-dimming, which results in less than expected energy savings.
• Over-dimming, which results in user irritation.
• Frequent cycling of dimming or switching, resulting in user irritation.
• Lights left on at night, which results in less than expected energy savings.

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Although these mistakes are common, they are preventable. Eijadi recommends these eight steps to combat failed daylighting projects:

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1. Conduct a daylight simulation, and use these plans when designing the lighting system and its controls.
2. Prepare plans that document daylight zones, and establish independent control zones that work optimally with these patterns.
3. Locate the photosensor on the reflected ceiling plans and interior elevations.
4. Identify light fixtures that are controlled by individual sensors or controllers.
5. Write a daylighting controls narrative.
6. Require the contractor to submit shop drawings based on design documents and control narrative for review.
7. Include the requirement for calibration of controls in the specifications, and require calibration logs to be submitted by the contractor. 
8. Provision building operator training by the controls manufacturer.

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Main source: http://ecmweb.com/contractor/why-do-daylight-harvesting-projects-succeed-or-fail