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Final Report: Smart Windows for Smart Buildings

EPA Grant Number: SU831878
Title: Smart Windows for Smart Buildings
Investigators: Hight, Tim , Aschheim, Mark , DeTorres, Aldwin , Fernandes, Crystal , Gonzalez, Jorge , Kitts, Chris , Koong, Richard , McCabe, John , Millward, Steven , Pargett, Michael , Pennington, Kelly
Institution: Santa Clara University
EPA Project Officer: Nolt-Helms, Cynthia
Project Period: September 30, 2004 through May 30, 2005
Project Amount: $10,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity, and the Planet (2004)
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development

Description:

Objective:

The Smart Window (SW) is an exploration into sustainable development. It intends to create a superior indoor climate for building occupants and positively influence humanity’s ability to capitalize on renewable resources. Due to rising energy costs, advanced energy-saving technologies, such as SW, are gaining market advantage by saving money and alleviating stress on an increasingly problematic energy sector.

“ Smart” technology uses embedded artificial intelligence (AI) in order to operate with superior product performance. Santa Clara University (SCU) has proposed the SW as a commercially feasible step towards implementing the Smart Building concept. The SW is a complete room climate control system that senses indoor and outdoor conditions, compares them, and then makes the appropriate adjustments in order to meet user-defined lighting and temperature setpoints while minimizing total energy consumption.

The SW fits into new construction such as the test structure that has been designed in parallel with it, but it is also being designed to adapt to existing buildings. This design is meant to minimize the risk of financially supporting dramatic, energy- saving technology by expanding the potential market to include all homeowners.

The SW achieves energy savings by maximizing beneficial heat transfer and natural lighting through the window and minimizing use of artificial lighting and the traditional HVAC system. The window operates by supplying ventilation through two large vents in the frame and by choosing between a number of films with a variety of optical transmittances.

Several optical films that are specifically designed to be suspended inside of windows have been supplied by Southwall Technologies. The SCU SW team has innovated on the concept by creating a long continuous sheet of different films and attaching the films to a roller. The roller is mounted within the window frame where the film is allowed to stretch behind the window pane. An optical sensor allows the window to identify and choose the correct translucence for any situation.

An actuator-microcontroller-sensor system controls the SW’s actions. Six Microcontrollers make up separate modules within the SW system that communicate via a serial network.

Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):

Most results are based on a one-to-one comparison between the SW and a conventional (standard) window. The standard window in the simulation calculations is identical to a window donated to the SCU Smart Window team for test purposes. It is an aluminum frame, double-pane low-E, air-filled window.

Heat transfer simulations predict that the SW will save 23% percent of the energy that would otherwise go towards room lighting or HVAC systems. The SW achieves energy savings by optimizing room fenestration levels so that the room’s windows contribute constructively to the occupant’s desired lighting and temperature setpoints. In the time scale of a day,

According to California’s census in 2000 and national U.S. Department of Energy statistics, if half of residential electricity goes towards lighting and temperature control systems and a third of the households in California adopt the Smart Window system, then over 1.3 million tons of CO2 emissions could be reduced. Preliminary data suggests a SW with a retail price of $1,000 would pay for itself in less than three years. This encouraging data suggests that a refined SW would perform strongly in the retail marketplace.

Conclusions:

The fundamental goal of the SW design project is to develop a climate control system that enables individuals to significantly improve the energy efficiency of their home or office building. This solution incorporates control over both light and heat entering the room by optimizing room fenestration. The SW also integrates with artificial lighting and HVAC systems in order to provide conditions that meet user specifications at all times. While the current design bears difficulties in integration, it will result in a superior approach to home energy management. The SW advances the Smart Building concept while embracing modularity and adaptability. Using this approach, future products designed for sustainability will have a higher chance of reaching market approval and widespread adoption.

Proposed Phase II objectives and strategies:

This 2nd phase of the Smart Windows R&D effort will further develop the film- based window and will contrast its performance and costs with a more sophisticated (and costly) electro-chromic solution. Life-cycle costs and benefits will be compared for these solutions in comparison to standard windows.

Phase II seeks to refine both designs and to expand the testing program, including a demonstration installation in a campus building. A solid-state electro-chromic window solution will also be developed and compared to the lower cost film solution in terms of performance and life cycle costs. Our challenge is to design a window system that can adjust and respond to environmental changes, both internal arid external, so as to create the most comfortable, healthy, and productive space at the least energy cost. Phase II of this research and development project builds directly on the work of Phase I.

All seniors in the SCU School of Engineering participate in a yearlong senior design project. Most projects involve teams of students, and an increasing number of those projects are interdisciplinary in nature. During the current academic year, two of the investigators were directly involved with roughly one third of all projects, and 100% of the Mechanical Engineering projects. The Smart Window project has been integrated into our existing Senior Design courses throughout the school of engineering. Seniors will be recruited for the second phase project from across the four departments and assembled into an integrated project team (or teams).

We will also incorporate the basic design problem into our Freshman Introduction to Engineering course, so that a wide spectrum of students will be engaged. This course is undergoing a major revision, and one of the major objectives of that revision is to increase the exposure of all of our freshmen to more socially relevant engineering projects. One aspect of that will involve community based learning, and another will stress the fundamentals of sustainability. The freshmen in this course will be exposed to some senior projects, such as this one, that have a more direct impact on people’s lives.

The faculty involved in this project will incorporate direct reference to the Smart Window project throughout other engineering courses. A typical example would be Heat Transfer course, where calculations could be made as to the expected heat loss in the two test buildings, and the energy usages could be predicted and compared. Similarly, in Engineering Economics, cost-benefit calculations could be made on the long-term costs of one design versus the other. In these ways, the impact of this design project can be multiplied throughout the engineering school curriculum.

Supplemental Keywords:

sustainable development, energy conservation, energy efficiency, advanced windows, smart buildings, green buildings, smart windows, automated control systems, low-energy buildings, fenestration, daylighting technology, residential windows, , Air, Sustainable Industry/Business, Scientific Discipline, RFA, POLLUTION PREVENTION, Technology for Sustainable Environment, Sustainable Environment, indoor air, Energy, Environmental Engineering, Ecology and Ecosystems, Engineering, energy conservation, environmental conscious construction, smart windows, indoor air quality, green design, green building design, sustainable development, smart buildings, architectual design, ecological design, architecture, alternative building technology
Relevant Websites:

http://windows.lbl.gov/ exit EPA
http://btech.lbl.gov/ exit EPA
http://www.eere.energy.gov/ exit EPA
http://www.scu.edu/engineering/undergraduate/upload/Engineering-Handbook-2.doc exit EPA

Progress and Final Reports:
Original Abstract

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The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.

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