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Poul E. KristensenEfficient Use of Daylight in Commercial Buildings Esbensen, Consulting Engineers FIDIC, Copenhagen, Denmark Abstract Natural daylight is an inexpensive and very efficient light source, provided that the amount of daylight entering a building is controlled according to demand. In commercial buildings electricity for lighting can be cut by 50-75% using daylighting design techniques in combination with efficient artificial lighting. New lighting control technologies and advanced computer simulation tools to optimize large buildings makes it possible to exploit these energy savings. The Scandinavian Ministries of Energy and the Commission of the European Communities, CEC, are active in promoting these new daylighting techniques. In an recent CEC design competition "Working in the City", the winning project showed a 76% reduction in electricity load for lighting, and a 50% reduction in overall building energy use. in Uppsala, Sweden, a 15,000 m_2 office building is being built, where good utilization of daylight via an atrium is a main design element. Another example is a 12,500 m_2 energy-efficient office building, which will be built in 1992/93 in Brussels, being a project in the CEC Thermie energy promotion programme.
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