“Adaptive Façade: Electrochromic glazing to Enhance Energy Efficiency of Office buildings”

Abstract

Fully glazed facades, particularly in office buildings, have certain benefits like transparency and a lot of daylight entering the building, but they also have some disadvantages like glare and solar heat gain in the summer. Fixed or static shade systems have limited ability to adjust to changes in the interior or outside environmental conditions over a day or season and may provide poor performance if operational needs vary over time. It optimizes access to sunshine and outside vistas, lowers energy costs, and provides architects with greater creative freedom. Electrochromic glass is a dynamic glass that can be electronically colored. The main objective of this research is to look into the potential for energy efficiency of installing electrochromic glazing on office buildings in Kathmandu valley. To study the energy, thermal, and visual features of the glazed spaces, a total of 120 questionnaire surveys were completed in three office banking offices in the Kathmandu valley. To learn more about the performance metrics of the available glazing technologies, market research and on-site surveys were also conducted. An experimental shoe box model of 12 by 8 by 3.15 inches was built to test eight glazing technologies, including electrochromic windows, using a simulation-based methodology. The basic case for energy optimization was chosen to be Prabhu Bank (Corporate building). However, the results of the shoe-box model showed that EC glazing only resulted in a 5.12% reduction in EUI. Similar to this, the shoe-box model only showed a negligible 10% reduction in the peak cooling requirement with EC glazing. Peak cooling loads decreased in the real office model by 56.79%, while the EUI decreased by 17.76% without a change in lighting. By comparing it to other static high-performance glazing systems, this study demonstrated that the EC glazing system did perform better at reducing energy.