Guided Sunlight for Room Illumination

Mag. Wilfried Pohl

Bartenbach LichtLabor GmbH
Rinnerstraße 14, A-6071 Aldrans/Innsbruck
Tel: +43 512 33 38 – 0
Fax: +43 512 33 38 – 88
e-mail: wilfried.pohl@bartenbach.com
Internet: http://www.bartenbach.com

Summary

Within the work of an EC-founded research project a pilot installation has been erected at
Bartenbach LichtLabor´s company site to illuminate an unlit cellar with natural sunlight.
Thus, direct sunlight, captured by means of a movable heliostat, is aimed to a fixed mirror which
redirects the sunlight to a concentrator. After compression, the sunlight is coupled in into a
hollow lightguide and finally reaches a sunluminaire which distributes the sunlight into the cellar
With this pilot installation the technical feasibility should be demonstrated while the monitoring
of operation should provide us with experiences concerning economics and energy saving
potential.

Lighting using natural sunlight stimulates a completely new field of architectural applications.
Courtyards and underground areas can be revealed, living quality can be raised. Completely
new architectural concepts using daylight without thermal problems will be possible.

Keywords

Lighting, Light Guiding, Sunlight, Daylight, Sunshading, Facade, Window, Building Energy,
Energy Saving, Architecture.

Short description of components

The realization of a Sun_Lighting_System (SLS) requires for highly precise optical components,
which were developed within the current European Community funded research project
„Developement of an economic and energy saving heliostat technology for room illumination“.

According to the feasibility study to achieve an economic operation the availability of a low cost
heliostat is absolutely necessary. However, the higher the heliostat´s preciseness the higher the
heliostat´s investment costs. Thus, a low cost heliostat consisting of cheap industrial
components was developed and combined with a new sensor control system. This guarantees
a very high tracking accuracy of less than 0.1° and a low energy consumption of 30 kWh/year
while simultaneously the investment costs of a heliostat can be decreased down to 1/3 of the
current costs.

The usage of new stiff materials of low weight for helistat mirror and redirection mirror in
combination with new fixing techniques enables a precise and adjustable light redirection to the
concentrator.

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A system of two adjustable fresnel lenses (concentrator) increases the density of incoming sun
light by a factor 35 by decreasing the lit area. This guarantees an optimum coupling into the
tubular hollow light guide (30 cm diameter) fitted with prismatic layer.
A 90° redirection element (knee) guides the sun light into the sun luminaire positioned in the
cellar.

The tubular sun luminaire consists of two longitudinal elements and a central element. By
means of reflective optical components the longitudinal elements of the sun luminaire distribute
sun light with respect to common glare limitations all over the cellar. Simultaneously, the central
element is able to directly extract sun light causing a bright spot on a table below thus creating a
visual (psychological) link to the outside.

Alternative color effects can be created by adding prismatic elements below the central element.

Supplementary to the distributed sunlight, flourescent lamps incorporated in the longitudinal

elements are automatically dimmed to zero in case of shiny outdoor conditions. During night or
in case of less sun shine the lamps are automatically turned on to guarantee stabil indoor
illuminances.

Room performance
Although the pilot installation is operating in a test mode to evaluate the project goals of an
energy saving (ecological) and economical heliostat technology, it already offers, that beside of
the promising technical data such a facility strongly improves the room performance by
predominately usage of natural sunlight.
By means of this technology building areas of lower quality (e.g. deep court yards, cellars, store
areas) can be transformed in areas of high quality which allow an (at least temporary)
occupation (e.g. conference rooms).

New building concepts and usings are possible, thus increasing the value (quality of life) for the
building owners and for the occupants.

To evaluate this impression objectively, Bartenbach LichtLabor will elaborate and execute
psychological and physiological experiments within the next months.

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Fig. 1: Pilot Installation at Bartenbach LichtLabor (Cross section)

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Fig. 2: Pilot Installation of a Sun Lighting System (view)

Existing
New Heliostat Redirection
heliostat
mirror

Fig. 3: Redirection Mirror

Shaftc with concentrator,

90°-Knee und hollow
lightguide

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Fig. 4: Cellar illuminated by direct sun light