What Is Daylighting and What Benefits Does It Offer?

When exploring ways to reduce your energy usage in your home or workplace, you may come across daylighting. This term refers to the use of windows or other surfaces to illuminate the interior of a given space with natural sunlight. Read on to discover more about daylighting and its benefits.

What Is Daylighting?

Daylighting is the use of windows, skylights, opening and reflective sunlight to allow sunlight into a space. Rather than relying solely on artificial lighting to illuminate your home or workplace, you can use natural lighting. By allowing sunlight to shine through windows or skylights, you can light up your home or business naturally. Daylighting even offers some surprising benefits.

The Benefits of Daylighting

Daylighting can offer numerous benefits, including a reduction in utility bills. Statistics show that lighting accounts for 5% to 10% of the average U.S. home’s energy usage. Over the course of a year, homeowners can expect to pay several hundred dollars in lighting-related electricity costs. Daylighting can offset these costs by reducing the need for artificial lighting. You may still need to use artificial lighting at night, but you can tap into natural lighting via sunlight during the day.

Daylighting can alleviate some of the burden on your home’s heating system. In the winter, sunlight provides not only lighting but also warmth in the form of thermal energy. As the sun beams through your windows, it can warm up your home while simultaneously reducing the need for heating. 

Another benefit of daylighting is improved health and wellbeing. Exposure to sunlight has been shown to improve mood, reduce stress and enhance overall wellbeing.

Active vs Passive Daylighting

There's active daylighting, and there's passive daylighting. The most common type, passive daylighting involves non-tracking systems such as windows and skylights. Active daylighting, on the other hand, utilizes mechanical devices. 

Here are some tips for passive daylighting:

• Pull back the curtains and blinds on south-facing windows during the winter.
• Use north-facing windows for natural lighting in rooms where sun glare is common.
• Remove large tree limbs or other obstructions that are blocking sunlight.
• If your home or workplace doesn't already have one, invest in a skylight.

In an active daylighting system, sensors detect sunlight and adjust the home’s efficiency accordingly. For instance, the system may open the curtains to a window automatically when sunlight hits that window, and it may also close them when the sunlight stops.