A comparative study on high-performance glazing for office buildings

Abstract

ABSTRACTHigh-performance glazing is commonly used in facades of contemporary commercial buildings. Compared to conventional glazing, high-performance glazing has the potential of achieving a better balance between occupants’ requirements and the energy demand of the building. Since each technology has its own strengths, it is necessary to understand their performances under different design scenarios in order to put them to the best use. In this article, we conduct a comparative study on 13 glazing scenarios on the facade of a typical cellular office room model. The simulations provide the energy demand/generation and indoor environmental quality of the scenarios in three geographic locations (London, Helsinki, and Rome), four orientations, and four window-to-wall ratios (WWRs) (30%, 50%, 70%, and 90%). It was found that photovoltaic integrated glazing with large WWRs and solar control glazing are generally superior to conventional insulating glazing in minimizing total energy demand. Electrochromic glazing provides a superior and stable indoor environment. More generally, the results provide a grouping of the technologies on the basis of their performance characteristics and a ranking of the different glazing options for different design scenarios, which could guide selection in real-world applications.