A Study on the Analysis of Daylighting System for the Improvement of Lighting Environment Performance in Buildings

Abstract

Energy consumption is increasing year after year, and the energy consumption in the building sector accounts for a significant part of the total consumption. The demand for technology development and research to solve increasing lighting energy consumption in buildings is growing, and daylighting systems are receiving much attention as a possible solution. However, there is still a lack of research on daylighting systems compared to building cooling energy. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the trend of daylighting system research related to improving the lighting environment and saving building energy and suggest future research directions for daylighting systems. Academic articles related to daylighting systems published in Korea after 2000 were analyzed, and the main findings are as follows. 1) The main content of most related papers was centered on combining various element technologies. These combinations focused on offering different functions from daylighting systems and integrating other fields, and most results showed improved daylighting performance compared to the single-structured daylighting systems. Also, recent research has begun to integrate IT, one of the core technologies of Industry 4.0, and this trend is expected to continue. 2) Most research on developing daylighting system technologies focused on daylighting control, which requires an optimal combination of operation and control, as mentioned above. 3) Most previous studies on daylighting systems validated the effectiveness of the proposed technologies but only focused on energy savings. These performance evaluations should have also considered the demand and satisfaction of occupants to verify the proper performance of daylighting systems. 4) Most previous works on developing daylighting system technologies did not consider or review economic feasibility (such as initial construction and maintenance costs), which is a major omission in demonstrating their effectiveness and a limitation of previous studies.