High-Performance Accuracy of Daylight-Responsive Dimming Systems with Illuminance by Distant Luminaires for Energy-Saving Buildings

In a conventional daylight-responsive dimming system (DRDS), all the luminaires are turned off during the calibration process except for the luminaire under consideration in order to sense only the workplane illuminance of that luminaire. However, the workplane illuminance of the luminaire is influenced by other luminaires. Therefore, the final workplane illuminance of the actual operated system is higher than the target workplane illuminance, reducing the energy-saving efficiency of the DRDS. Herein, to improve the conventional DRDS, an advanced commissioning prediction method of daylight illuminance, and a dimming control algorithm considering the influences by distant luminaires are proposed. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed prediction method of daylight illuminance, the daylight illuminance on the workplane and the photo sensor values of six points were measured in a full-scale mockup for 27 consecutive days from 22 June to 18 July 2018. As a result of root-mean-square error (RMSE) analysis of daylight illuminance and the photo sensor values, the RMSE (64.86) of P3 located in the middle of the room was the highest, and the RMSE value (17.60) of P5 located near the window was the lowest. In addition, the power consumption of the luminaires, and the target illuminance accuracy of the proposed DRDS were measured and analyzed for 32 consecutive days from 19 July to 19 August 2018 in a full-scale mockup. The average target illuminance accuracy was 96.9% (SD 2.2%), the average lighting energy-savings ratio was 78.4%, and the daylight illuminance prediction accuracy was 95.5% (SD 3.4%).