Efficiency Improvements - Smarter Windows, Skyscrapers and the New Efficiency Research Hub

Electrochromic Windows – An Efficiency Breakthrough that's now Commercially Available

Smarter windows have officially arrived.  A company called Sage Electrochromic just won a $72 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy to produce its SageGlass® product. “SageGlass® allows natural light in while controlling unwanted solar heat and glare and can be used in building windows, skylights, and curtain walls,” according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Website (Source: www.energy.gov, March 5). (Image Credit: www.buildinggreen.com/)

The windows include several thin layers of metal oxide materials that can remain opaque or darken with the influence of a weak electrical current. This special ability allows for the windows to adjust to the amount of light and heat that’s incoming, which in turn cuts down on energy loss through the windows. The rough figure of energy waste through conventional windows is around 30% depending on the building, so the installation of these windows alone could mean significant energy cost savings. For more details about how this exciting new window technology works, please visit the Sage Electrochromic technical information page here.

 

A Local Non-Profit’s Success with an Iconic Building’s Retrofit

To follow-up on my article about this project when it launched in July of 2009, the Rocky Mountain Institute’s eight-month joint venture to study and recommend efficiency retrofitting for the Empire State Building in Manhattan recently came to a close The venture, a project of the Clinton Climate Institute, Johnson Controls, Jones Lang LaSalle and Colorado-based non-profit the Rocky Mountain Institute, managed to find 38% in energy efficiency savings across the building for an annual cost savings of $4.4 million (Sources:
www.esbsustainability.com/,  greensource.construction.com, March 3). 

All of the recommended measures had to meet strict cost-effectiveness standards and both the project's results and methodology are posted online at www.esbsustainability.com. Among the recommended efficiency measures were the installation of digital demand controls (9% savings), an office layout technique called “tenant daylighting” (6%), switching from constant air volume units to variable air volume ones (5%), retrofitting the building’s chiller plant (5%), window glazing (5%) and several others (Source: www.esbsustainability.com). To learn more about the project, please visit http://www.esbsustainability.com/ and take a peek at both the interactive tools section and their comprehensive reports.  (Image Credit:  www.esbsustainability.com/)


The Energy Regional Innovation Cluster – Efficiency Solutions for Every Project Scale 

Seven federal agencies recently announced that they will ban together to contribute $129.7 million over the next five years to create an energy efficiency research center aimed at solving issues that range from efficiency basics to mass implementation on a commercial scale (Source: www.energy.gov, February 12). The official Department of Energy release goes on to re-iterate that nearly 40% of the energy consumption and carbon emissions in the United States comes from buildings and that the program will also focus on job creation. This new “hub” will be a unique mixture of energy efficiency experts and will be called the Energy Regional Innovation Cluster (E-RIC). The principal goals of this lab will be to combine the efforts of the public and private sectors to tackle large- and small-scale efficiency issues to guide better solutions through to the marketplace at a faster rate. (Image Credit:  www.life.com/)

Such a lab will be a very exciting and unprecedented way to join the research strengths of both the government and the private sector and allow them to work together on problems of all scales to develop solutions that could have a huge impact on efficiency innovations over the next few years. The new lab’s location has yet to be determined, but will likely be at a university, an existing DOE laboratory, at a non-profit or within a private company. Other funding providers include the U.S. Department of Commerce (up to $5.5 million between three DOC programs) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (Source: www.energy.gov, February 12).