Daylighting design in a low energy building

"An efficient use of the energy that we can get for free from the nature, represents the first. manner to achieve energy saving and to reduce our dependence from fossil fuels. In this. context, daylight plays a fundamental role for both energy saving and improvement of the. quality of life. On this track different tools are today available for researchers, designers. and professionals to carry out the assessment of daylight influence at the early stage of. design process both considering software simulation and\/or other facilities such as real or. artificial sky thus using physical simulation with scale-models. This paper deals with. results of trials performed at the early stage of a design process referred to a low energy. building located in south Italy where the abovementioned tools have been applied for. natural light evaluation. To this aim a scale model has been investigated under an. artificial sky of a mirror-box type and results compared with those obtained by computer. simulation software Ecotect to determine the interior distribution of illuminance in terms. of Daylight Factor. Later, simulation software has been used to evaluate the effect of of. photovoltaic modules with different optical transparency (and number of PV modules. integrated) integrated in large fenestration system, in terms of Daylight Autonomy, theoretical electrical energy deliverable and artificial lighting energy demand."