An advanced strategy for energy efficient lighting incorporating distributed sensing and tailored controls [electronic resource]

Improving energy efficiency in buildings is an increasing national and international priority in response to concerns regarding environmental impacts and global climate change as well as energy security and the stability and condition of the distribution infrastructure. The building sector accounts for 41 percent of total energy use in the United States with 46 percent of this energy consumed by the commercial sector. With 78 percent of commercial building energy use coming from electricity and heavy use times coinciding with daily peak electricity demand, the commercial sector has a disproportionately high impact on the aging electricity grid system. The daily peak window also coincides with maximum daylight availability driving the development and installation of daylight compensation dimming systems. Currently available systems have been demonstrated to achieve significant energy savings, but due to their dependence on distributed control with sparse sensing and actuation points, they lack consideration of the individual needs of occupants and miss potential energy savings. This research designs a new, tiered energy allocation system for commercial building lighting that effects daylight compensation through the integration of distributed sensing, tailored lighting scenes, and individualized preferences. At the base level of the system are densely distributed sensors and lamp actuators. The sensors collect light level, light level preference, and occupancy information. The actuators set dimming levels on individual lamps to provide maximum flexibility in the lighting scene. The middle level of the system is composed of zone managers which coordinate the sensors and actuators within their zones and use the provided information to create a zone energy use utility curve. The top level of the system is the building server which allocates building-wide energy resources in accordance with the utility curves from all zones. The zone level is capable of acting quickly in response to changing local conditions while the centralized building level enables energy use and performance tracking and facilitates energy use curtailment, either in response to a demand response request or to minimize use during peak pricing, by allocating limited energy resources to parts of the building that can best put them to use. The advantages of this tiered resource allocation system center around defining the explicit relationship between energy use and the service level provided to occupants. Basing resource allocation decisions on the relative energy cost of quantified performance improvements across the building enables the system to focus on maintaining the maximum achievable performance level for the occupants while using minimal resources. This service-based approach enables the explicit designation of acceptable service level standards and the inclusion of relative importance weighting for individuals and areas throughout the building. A prototype wireless hardware system is designed to show the implementability of the system and a building simulation tool is developed to show the system performance. The prototype hardware system is designed on a wireless platform to demonstrate the applicability of the resource allocation system to retrofit projects as well as new construction and to emphasize the adaptability of the system for use in reconfigurable spaces. The evaluation of the tiered resource allocation system shows both decreased energy use and improved occupant performance as compared to conventional dimming systems.

Advisor: Law K. H. (Kincho H.) primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Baker Jack W. advisor. Thesis advisor
Kiremidjian Anne S. (Anne Setian) advisor. Thesis advisor