Interior lighting control system: a practical case using daylight harvesting control strategy

The adoption of an interior lighting control system could be an efficient solution to reduce the amount of the electrical energy used for the medium and large tertiary and commercial buildings. The adequate regulation of the control system is essential but not simple to identify. The system programmer must do it at the installation start-up of the system. Moreover, during the first period of the life cycle of the system a technical management to monitor and fine-tune the control is necessary. In the research, the interior lighting control system installed into a university classroom is discussed as a case study. The control system is equipped with illuminance sensors that detect the punctual level of illuminance in the area below. A campaign of measurements on the field and simulations by software were carried out with different lighting scenarios. Particular relevance was given to the start-up activity. It consists in the adjusting the modulation of the flux emitted by the lamps in order to guarantee, in every scenario, the minimum average value of illuminance required by standards.