An Energy Performance Evaluation of Commercially Available Window Glazing in Darwin’s Tropical Climate

Hooman Mehdizadeh-Rad,Taimoor Ahmad Choudhry,Anne W. M. Ng,Asad Zia,Zohreh Rajabi,Muhammad Farooq Rais,Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq

doi:10.3390/su14042394

Hooman Mehdizadeh-Rad, Taimoor Ahmad Choudhry + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042394

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Abstract

A total of 40% of the world’s energy produced is utilized to maintain thermal comfort for the occupants of the building. Governments are taking measures collectively to regulate energy efficient buildings to reduce carbon emissions globally. Windows account for more than half of total energy losses in the buildings. The employment of energy efficient glazing in the construction industry is not common in Australia. This paper investigates several types of commercially available windows and their effectiveness in the hot and humid climate of Darwin. Although extensive literature is available for cold regions, these windows have not been studied in hot and humid climates such as the climate in Darwin. Building cooling loads of an academic building were calculated using Autodesk Revit Architecture and Carrier HAP. Double glazed variants offered approximately a 5% reduction in cooling loads and had a payback period of nearly 7 to 9 years, depending on the type of gas used to fill the pane cavity. The results indicate that triple glazed, or aerogel-based windows will provide about 11–12 % of energy saving in cooling loads. These can be a viable alternative and have a payback period of 11 years, while their average service life expectancy is 30 years. It was found that the feasibility of efficient glazing depends on market price, building usage, and energy efficiency of an overall building envelope.

Highlights

With the increase in the population, more buildings have been constructed, leading to a rise in cooling/heating loads
The Menzies building in Charles Darwin University was selected for the analysis due to the fact it has curtain walls on three sides with a large window to wall ratio (WWR)
As the building under study was an office building, the energy loads were expected during office hours only

Summary

Introduction

With the increase in the population, more buildings have been constructed, leading to a rise in cooling/heating loads. It is estimated that nearly 90% of a human’s life is spent in an indoor environment. To achieve a level of thermal comfort, each building has its own thermal load based on specific parameters. The electricity is the primary power source that maintains this thermal comfort by the continuous extraction or supply of heat in the conditioned space. The construction industry produces hundreds of new buildings every day, which in turn, are raising energy demands exponentially. Lu and Lai found that almost one-third of all the energy generated is consumed by buildings [1]. Buildings consume 40% of energy and cause 36%

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