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An Empirical Study and Analysis of Daylight Penetration Through a Light Plenum
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Date
1985
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu)
Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu)
Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu)
Abstract
Lighting accounts for approximately 54% of the
annual energy consumption of office buildings, and
can effectively be reduced through daylighting. The
simplest way to provide day lighting into a typical
office space has been to use unilateral sidelighting. Discomfort and visibility glare from unilateral sidelighting cause the occupant to close drapes
or blinds and turn on luminaries, resulting in an
inefficient use of daylighting. One daylighting
concept that has been developed to alleviate this
problem is the light plenum.
A light plenum can be added economically to an
office space by using a hung ceiling simultaneously
as a return air and light plenum. The appropriate
opaque ceiling panels could be replaced with transparent ones to get the light to the rear of the
space. The question is how much light can be expected
to be transferred to the rear of the room and
how different plenum opening configurations would
affect those light levels.
The result simply that a hung ceiling light
plenum can provide adequate light to the rear of the
room to balance the high brightness ratios created
by unilateral sidelighting. Also, certain plenum
opening configurations are more advantageous for
certain sky conditions and orientations, and there
are some which are of no benefit.