DEMAND SIDE MANAGEMENT FOR METAL BUILDINGS

摘要

A new approach to Demand Side Management (DSM) for commercial buildings under development through a National Science Foundation SBIR grant utilizes improved insulation with fire safe features and a composite based roof deck with integrated daylighting sections. The new system will cut the air conditioning load in the building by reducing artificial lighting and/or the infrared component of the daylighting system.rnImprovements to insulation in metal buildings using foam has been limited because of high smoke ratings in the UL Sheathing (fire test) ASTM E-84. Foams typically result in smoke ratings of 275 - 450. This far exceeds the limit of 50 for Class I sheathing rating. In the new construction, all of the components are UL recognized in the E-84 test, with the worst smoke rating being 15-20 for the composite web material.rnDaylighting is critically important in buildings both from both an economic and a national security perspective. Combined with heat gain from conventional glazing, waste heat from artificial lighting makes up 98% of the air conditioning demand in US commercial buildings. In turn, the reactive electrical load from summer air conditioning is a significant factor in black outs of the national electrical grid, i.e. energy security.rnA second objective of the research is to apply known infrared rejection techniques to cut the heat flow coming in with direct sunlight through a daylighting section in the roof deck. While diffuse daylight has a very low content of infrared, direct sunlight carries about 60 % of its energy in the infrared. While this is an improvement over the 72% typical waste heat delivered with commercial building artificial lighting, improvement is clearly needed in daylighting technology. (1)(2)rnAn illustration of daylighting (as opposed to skylights which do not distribute light) is shown in Figure 1. The skylights shown are in a flat roof industrial building and provide the sole lighting in the picture. The wide distribution of the light can be seen below.