Shadow management

Depending on the time of day and a building’s location, shadows move, affecting the level of sunlight in each room. Thanks to Somfy’s shadow management solution, each solar shading device is controlled individually or per zone, thereby guaranteeing optimum levels of user comfort.

Operating Principle

The shadow management solution enables optimisation of standard solar functions such as sun tracking by activating or deactivating solar shading based on the shadows cast on windows or zones.

How does it work?

Shadow management by Somfy is based on 3D modelling of the building carried out in advance taking the following various factors into account:

The building’s architecture
The building’s geographical location
The number and position of its windows
The position of neighbouring buildings
The sun’s path relative to the building

These details are compiled and recorded in a database which is then provided to the integration project and connected to the existing installation.

Based on this analysis, shadow management manages the movement of shadows from one window/zone to another through the use of a sun sensor, located on a mast on the roof of the building, per facade exposed.

The shadows cast by the surrounding buildings or changes in weather conditions are managed in real-time.

Thus, only windows/zones exposed to the sun have their solar shading lowered.

Benefits

Better visual comfort for occupants
Optimisation of standard solar functions
Reduced use of artificial lighting resulting in energy savings
Control on a window or a zone basis

Technical Description

The shadow management solution is installed on a Shadow Device connected to the BMS (Building Management System).

Management of this function depends on the predefined physical location of each window/zone and which constitutes part of the information extracted from the database. This list of window/zone locations is provided by Somfy based on the building plans supplied. The integration work package uses this list in a database which enables interfacing with the physical network for the installation.

Documents to be supplied in order to set up this solution:

At the planning stage:

Ground/location plan (PDF)
3D drawing of the building (SKP / RVT / DXF)

During implementation:

3D digital model (RVT / SKP)
Implementation plan (DWG / DXF)