If you the one who pays the utility bill for your home or your business, chances are you’d love an opportunity to drastically reduce your electricity usage. Daylighting is such a solution. It’s not perfect, but it is becoming an increasingly viable option for conserving energy and for lighting a room without traditional artificial lighting.
New breakthroughs and innovations in skylight technology and skylight design have led to the practice of daylighting. Daylighting is an innovative process of providing natural light throughout a room as an effective and efficient alternative to artificial, electronic light. When installing skylights as a daylighting skylight system, the skylights are positioned in the ceiling such that they provide the optimal sunlight; the sunlight provided is should give the most light consistently for the longest amount of time.
The primary benefit of daylighting is the savings in energy. Energy consumption is one of the larger costs in running a home or operating a business, and daylighting is a practice that aims to reduce this cost. It’s the primary purpose of installing a skylight daylighting system. By substituting artificial electric light for natural sunlight through a skylight, daylighting saves large amounts of energy. The result is an electric or utilities bill that can be as much as 50% lower.
Advanced daylighting systems often work in sync with artificial ceiling light. The most advanced daylighting skylight systems will work with indoor electric light to auto-adjust, working together with the artificial light system to provide a balance between artificial and natural light. This will provide a mix of natural light and artificial light to make the room balanced. The result is a room that is lit, but uses a lower amount of electricity. In situations like this, the energy savings won’t be as large as a complete substitution for natural light, but it will still be significantly lower.
There are some practical issues with daylighting, unfortunately. At certain times of the day, the natural light that enters your building will be less than ideal. This is why some integrated daylight systems were created. Another problem is that eastern and western, angled skylight windows have issues with glare, heating, and less than optimal lighting. Daylighting is also less effective during the spring and summer. These are challenges that modern skylight designers are working to overcome in future skylight generations.
When consider a daylight system, one should make sure they know why they are purchasing it; the goal of a daylight system is to decrease energy usage and therefore one’s energy bill. As such, daylighting should strictly be viewed as an investment that will save money not in the short term, but in the long term. Daylighting systems are becoming increasingly popular and sophisticated; suggesting that better, more advanced daylighting systems will soon be available.
It is a leading provider of commercial and personal skylights and skylight accessories. They also advocate daylighting, providing a variety of daylighting skylight systems for installation.
