Daylighting, artificial electric lighting, solar heat gain, and space-heating energy performance analyses of electrochromic argon gas-filled smart windows retrofitted to the building

Abstract

The inevitability to reduce CO₂ emissions to avoid preventable climate change is widely being yelped. To minimise the impact of rapidly changing climate, this paper presents novel research findings and contributes to developing electrochromic argon gas-filled glazed smart windows retrofitted to the building with IoT based transparency control. In this, the comparative analyses of the daylighting, electrical lighting, solar heat gain, and space-heating load of the building using the dynamic thermal and electric lighting modelling methods based on real weather temperatures are presented. The daylighting analysis results implicate that the building with electrochromic argon gas-filled smart windows reduced 19% of daylight illuminance during summer months compared with the building retrofitted with double air-filled glazed windows daylight factor remains consistent. As such, the solar heat gains analysis results implicate at least 50 % annual solar heat gain reduction predicted in the building with electrochromic argon gas-filled smart windows in comparison to double air-filled windows. This leads to the conclusion of the space-heating energy analysis that implicates the highest contribution to the space heating demand is the solar heat gain caused by double air-filled glazed windows. The results confirm that the LED artificial electric lighting system requires fewer fittings and thus total power load compared to the fluorescent lighting system, throughout the year, to the building with electrochromic argon gas-filled glazed smart windows. The daylight controls are linked to the electrochromic argon gas-filled glazed smart windows, so they only operate when the glazing is tinted, or the daylight level drops below a set level; this will reduce the energy usage and also lower the space heating of the room.