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Abstract: In the tropics, daylighting from a side window requires shading to intercept direct sunlight from the window whilst allowing penetration of daylight from sky. In this paper, daylighting from a double-pane glazed window with enclosed horizontal slats (slat window) was investigated for which it is situated on either north or south wall of a room. Full-scale experiments and simulations were conducted to characterize distribution of the interior daylight from the slat window under a real tropical climate. Performance of the slat window was evaluated in terms of the “useful daylight illuminance” (UDI), interior daylight availability and light power density (LPD) of an integrated dimmable lighting system. Empirical formulas were developed for determining annual average LPD values of the dimmable lighting system over its served area. The LPD value can be used with a reduced form of the energy equation of Thailand's building energy code to evaluate the reduced annual electrical energy consumption for accreditation of the daylight use in a building. The analysis of life cycle cost proved that the daylighting from the slat window integrated with the dimmable lighting system is cost effective. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Hainan province is the only tropical and island province in China, with the unique climatic and geographical features. It has a different energy performance in public buildings from those in the inland areas. This paper investigated the current situation of energy consumption of the sampled public buildings, including 26 hotels, 24 office buildings and 7 department stores, through analyzing utility billing data, on-site survey and measurement, and site operational records. The breakdowns of energy consumption found out that the electricity dominated the energy consumption for all the sampled buildings and the air conditioning system played a key role in the energy consumption of major building services. By analyzing the main factors for building energy consumption, the annual average energy use indexes were calculated to be 141.63kWh/m2, 87.70kWh/m2, and 166.95kWh/m2 for hotels, office buildings and department stores, respectively. Besides, the comparison between Hainan province and other areas revealed that the building energy consumption of this tropical province was at a low level. Because indoor environment quality can influence the health and work efficiency of humans in buildings, field tests on the indoor environment quality were also carried out, and the performance of indoor environment quality was rated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]