A review of smart solar shading systems and their applications: Opportunities in cold climate zones

Abstract

The green building movement has emphasized the importance of sustainable building systems design practices to improve the performance of new and existing building envelope components. It is known that fenestration accounts for the majority of heat transfer across the building envelope. This highlights the relevance of fenestration technologies to improve the thermal performance of existing glazing units. A state-of-the-art literature review was conducted to identify the current research directions of fenestration-related technologies with the aim to identify research opportunities related to their implementation in cold climate zones. A keyword-guided literature search was executed to collect current research works regarding various types of fenestration technologies including automated shading systems, glazing films and coating, and smart glazing systems. The review provides a technology overview of these fenestration technologies, the methodologies used to evaluate their energy performance, and the building energy savings obtained through their implementation. Fenestration technologies were assessed based on an evaluation of their season-specific energy performance and an assessment of limitations for cold climate zone implementation. Finally, future research opportunities were identified to improve the energy performance verification procedure of fenestration technologies. Research gaps related to the cold climate applicability of fenestration technologies were also highlighted. Findings from this work provide insight into future research endeavors related to the energy savings quantification procedures for fenestration technologies and the technology's development for cold climate zone applications.