Unfortunately a lot of people cheat with their LEED daylight points unknowingly that the sDA they document is actually just a DA.
In the sDA, every hour where more than 2% of the simulation points (per zone) receive >1000 lux from direct sun, that zone should be simulated as if the blinds were down. This causes rooms close to the facade to trigger blinds that will affect zones deeper into the building volume.
It’s described in LM-83, which the official LEED documentation is also referring to.
Find it here:
https://www.techstreet.com/standards/ies-lm-83-12?product_id=1853773
It can be discussed whether the LM 83 study was tested on enough cases before it became industry standard because of LEED and LEED has also been criticized for it.
Christoph Reinhardt raises concerns about if the 1000 lux threshold is too low here: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1477153515587613?journalCode=lrtd
Remember that normal daysim calculated ASE may cause too many points to receive “direct” sun as that is calculated by a few sky patches instead of the real sun position. The HB (and also DIVA) ASE calculations use real sun position. Read more here:
In recent LEED documentation it was also opened a possibility to have ASE above 20% instead of 10% if shade control is well implemented (still doesn’t change blinds schedule and the sDA):
All the best,
Mathias Sønderskov Nielsen