Daylight dimming has a huge range of applications. 80% of office staff state that having good lighting when they’re at work is important and that two fifths of British workers have to deal with lighting that they describe as “uncomfortable”. The presence of comfortable light levels are also essential for 5-10% of employees who live with seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
The quality of exposure to daylight within the workplace also affect employees’ quality of life, their activity levels, and their sleep patterns, according to Psychology Today.
Common particularly to modern commercial buildings is the inclusion of reflective surfaces, skylights, and large windows to create much more natural internal light within the workplace – this is an architectural approach called “daylighting”.
When exposed to the right amount of natural light, there are up to 84% fewer reports of blurred vision, eyestrain, and headaches among staff. Staff absence levels fall by 6.5% and, in retail outlets, sales have been shown to rise by around 40%.
With the level of natural light varying throughout the day and at different times of year, daylight dimming can ensure that a predictable and comfortable level of light can be delivered to staff at all times maintaining staff productivity and happiness levels.
In this article, we discuss daylight dimming and:
Bright but comfortable light within a workspace delivers:
In addition to bringing benefits to your colleagues, there are strong commercial benefits in working from a premises which takes advantage of daylighting:
Daylighting must be tailored to each premises because:
Daylight dimming is a feature of daylight harvesting – a facilities management tool designed for commercial premises constructed using the principles of sustainable architecture.
Daylight harvesting is a control system using photosensors to either measure:
There are three types of daylight harvesting systems you can choose from for your premises:
Daylight dimming systems (sometimes referred to as closed loop systems) are more expensive than daylight switching systems (sometimes referred to as open-loop systems or on-off systems). The savings provided by daylight dimming systems are nearly always larger than daylight switching systems even though the power required for a daylight dimming system is a little greater.
The measurements recorded instruct a daylight dimming system to provide a specific level of additional artificial lighting in a premises. This is so that the amount of light colleagues are working in remains the same no matter the amount of natural light available from outside.
Daylight dimmers are generally used more in environments which require a specific amount of light at all times – for example, studios, museums, classrooms, and small offices.
Daylight dimming systems are now much quicker and less expensive to fit than before because of simplified and integrated design sometimes within the light fitting itself (leading to less or no ceiling clutter) and easier commissioning (without the need for ladders and tools).
Daylight dimming can reduce lighting energy costs by up to 60% – this is important given that 23% of a typical company’s energy bill is on lighting and for schools and hospitals 42%.
However, the actual amount of money saved on electricity bills is also dependent on the skills of the engineers and the company you choose to install digital dimming.
Please get in touch with us by calling 01202 554 200 or simply send an email to info@airius.co.uk and we’ll be in touch with further information.
