A team of researchers at the University of Toronto has developed a multilayered fluidic system that can reduce the energy costs of heating, cooling and lighting buildings by optimizing the wavelength, intensity and dispersion of light transmitted through windows.
Buildings are the costliest energy sinks on Earth. For their daily operation, which largely entails trying to heat, cool, and light the indoor environment as exterior conditions change, buildings require 32% of the energy and 50% of the electricity consumed globally, corresponding to about 25% of our greenhouse gas emissions.
Moreover, the emissions associated with buildings may double or triple by mid-century with increased urbanization.
Global air conditioning demand is set to triple by 2050. Heating and cooling energy use is expected to grow by 79% and 84% in the same timeframe.
In addition, electricity-based emissions from residential and commercial buildings have already quintupled and quadruped, respectively, in the last four decades.
Underpinning this alarming and growing footprint is a fundamental unmet challenge in building design: existing facades cannot achieve selective, reconfigurable responses to their solar environment; no window, sunshade, or chromogenic technology is able to independently tune the amount, wavelength, and dispersion of incident sunlight as solar conditions change.
“Buildings use a ton of energy to heat, cool and illuminate the spaces inside them,” said University of Toronto researcher Raphael Kay.
“If we can strategically control the amount, type and direction of solar energy that enters our buildings, we can massively reduce the amount of work that we ask heaters, coolers and lights to do.”
“Currently, certain ‘smart’ building technologies such as automatic blinds or electrochromic windows — which change their opacity in response to an electric current — can be used to control the amount of sunlight that enters the room.”
But these systems are…
Read the full article here