Improvement of the Illumination Levels Combined with Energy Savings for a Residential Building

Abstract

The efficient design of lighting in buildings is very important for comfort and energy saving. It is vital to determine the overall comfort level for the personnel occupying the rooms. This chapter is an attempt for providing high efficient lighting system and low electrical energy consumption in a residential building. For this purpose, a faculty residential house situated in the campus of Sultan Qaboos University was selected as a case study. This chapter has two aims. The first aim was to study the existing lighting systems used in the house. The second aim was to redesign the existing lighting system of the house in an efficient way to provide higher efficient lighting system and lower energy consumption. The current LEED codes and ASHRAE green tips for the green building codes were used as benchmark and as guide. The proposed lighting design is a model engineering design. The design of the lighting system for each space of the house was carried out with the support of the DIALux lighting program version 4.5. A thorough study of lighting requirements was undertaken. The existing lighting practice was compared with present green design through isolux maps. The results showed significant savings of up to 34% of thermal load from better and reliable design. A reduction in electrical load was also achieved through efficient luminaires selection.