Facade and electric lighting integration

Facades and electric lighting systems are, for the most part, still considered as separate systems throughout the design, installation, commissioning, operation, and maintenance cycle. This takes place despite that fact that their energy and comfort performance are deeply interlinked, with research and development efforts over the last two decades showing that there are significant advantages to be had by considering these as an integrated system. Nevertheless, significant barriers prevent this type of integration becoming more common, including the lack of integration standards, standard algorithms, and performance metrics. This paper presents recent research and development on addressing these gaps. Open Facade Control is an open-source controls framework aimed at unified control of facade and lighting systems, including the sharing of third-party sensor information. Through leveraging the Volttron controls platform it allows the integration of systems and sensors from different manufacturers into an ensemble that functions as a single system. While this platform permits the use of any algorithm that an implementer may want to enact, standard reference algorithms for common implementation situations are also needed, obviating the need to develop custom algorithms in every situation; these are presented in this paper as well. Finally, the performance of integrated facade and lighting systems needs to be quantified by metrics that are not only representative of such performance but can also that are practical to be measured in real, operating buildings. In this regard, visual comfort is a particularly challenging domain. A review of available metrics and a proposal for the most suitable ones is also included here. Altogether, these developments are promising in realizing a true integration of facade and electric lighting systems throughout their lifecycle, leading to more comfortable and energy-efficient indoor environments.