Investigation of day light levels in a room within a building

Abstract

This work investigates natural light levels inside a room in Electrical & Information Engineering building, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. In order to reduce the amount of energy used on lighting, it is imperative to make the utmost use of natural daylight. The use of windows are one traditional solution, other solutions are skylights and light pipes; atria and light wells; domes and arches; structural glass which are all discussed. In high temperature regions, it is necessary to reduce the amount of sunlight entering the room because light produces heat. With the use of a Light Dependent Resistor (LDR sensor), results are presented to study the day light levels in a room by measuring the light levels at various parts of the room; by measuring the proportion of light entering through the window and measuring how the light level changes over a 24 hour period. The outcome of this work is the study and development of a system that can monitor light levels in a building. The application of this work extends to determining the period of the day when daylight is maximal in order to reduce energy cost, building an automation system for the automatic lighting of dark areas within a building as well as monitoring energy consumption used to light p a building. Further extension will be to make predictions on the natural light level based on the data available.