Climate change is very real and very dangerous. If we don’t take the necessary steps to reduce carbon emissions and stop using so much energy, the Earth will suffer greatly. Many different climate organizations have projected countless scenarios and models to simulate what may happen if we take steps to improve the global emission rate. One of the most common, but lofty, goals that has been proposed is reducing our emissions so much that the global climate only increases in temperature by 1.5°C by 2100 (i). While there are many different ways we can tackle this looming threat, one way that many people may not know about is through dynamic glass.
What is Dynamic Glass?
Have you ever heard of the glasses that change in the sunlight to become sunglasses? Dynamic glass is essentially the same thing except for buildings. However, when installed in buildings, dynamic glass does not aim to block out the sun, it’s primary objective is to keep the heat produced by the sun inside the building. This is achieved by the glass in the windows changing their opacity to regulate how much heat gets in and out of the building. Once the glass gets up to a certain temperature, it will begin to increase its opacity. This makes it harder for heat to get into the building but also harder to get out of the building. By making this change in opacity, the heat that is already inside the building will have a hard time getting back outside which means the glass is essentially insulating the building and saving energy that would have otherwise been used for internal heating. This also works the other way, with cooling. By becoming opaque, the glass prevents excess heat from coming into the building resulting in cooler internal temperatures and thus, a smaller need for air conditioning inside (i).
How Does it Work?
Dynamic glass is made up of multiple different layers and uses electrochromic technology. The tint on the glass can be controlled by the amount of voltage applied to the glass. A low voltage sent through the glass is transferred through the glass by thin layers of lithium ions and electrons. This low voltage causes the lithium ions and electrons to move from one layer of the glass to another. The layer of glass that the lithium ions and electrons move to gets tinted. This tint will block light from getting in and from escaping. Once the voltage is removed, the polarity of the glass switches, causing the tint to disappear. When the tint disappears more light/heat can come in and out. Some windows can even block heat from escaping while also allowing more heat to enter and vise versa (v).
Costs and Savings
As you can see in this graph, as you spend more money on Dynamic glass the amount you save from heating and cooling costs goes up. While dynamic glass may be a big investment it also has a big payoff in the future. There are multiple types of dynamic glass that can be used to reduce the amount of energy use. Some types darken much more than others, which leads to a bigger amount of energy saved. Across the different types of dynamic glass, studies have shown that energy savings in office buildings can reduce annual electricity consumption by 30% and peak demand by 23% in large area buildings. The use of dynamic glass in windows as active elements in a building’s envelope can also save up to about 50% of the primary energy used for air-conditioning (iii). These are massive numbers when you take into account the amount of buildings that are in the world and can switch over to dynamic glass and save. In addition to saving energy and money from not needing to heat and cool as much, we can also limit the amount of electricity we need to use to light the places we live and work in. This is achieved by the dynamic glass altering the amount of natural light that is let in, so that we do not need to close the shades and turn a light on for example (iii).
Benefits to the Climate
Huge savings in heating and cooling means huge savings in energy. If we can implement 341 million square meters of glass in buildings by 2050, something that would cost roughly 103 billion US dollars, we can reduce emissions by 0.5 gigatons which in other words, means 0.5 billion tons less of carbon in the atmosphere(i). This would make a big impact on climate change. In order to stop climate change experts have advised a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050(iv). If implemented to this level, dynamic glass could be responsible for roughly a 1.5% reduction in emissions. This reduction may see small but it is in fact very large. If we can combine efforts with other solutions and make a transition to more renewable sources of energy, we can be looking at minimal, or even zero, net carbon emissions from buildings in the future. Hopefully this will happen because it would be a huge benefit to society.
Conclusion
In conclusion, dynamic glass is a small but potentially very important step towards net zero emissions. With large buildings needing to be heated or cooled constantly, we are using so much more energy than is necessary, and dynamic glass can easily help put an end to that. Of course, the costs and amount of glass necessary to implement to see any drastic change seems very high, but the benefits overall will be well worth the money, time, and resources needed to fully implement this solution. Climate change is a very big problem that requires very big solutions, and while dynamic glass is relatively small, we have to start somewhere. Embrace the future, embrace dynamic glass.
Video
Check out this link for an awesome video on Dynamic Glass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm1uQfKlNu8
References
(i)Dynamic Glass. (2020, June 29). Project Drawdown. https://drawdown.org/solutions/dynamic-glass
(ii)“Eyewear Fashion Trend.” Difference between Photochromic and Transition Lenses — Eyewear Fashion Trend, 23 Aug. 2019, specscart.booklikes.com/post/1940252/difference-between-photochromic-and-transition-lenses.
(iii)Papaefthimiou, S., Syrrakou, E., & Yianoulis, P. (2006). Energy performance assessment of an electrochromic window. Thin Solid Films, 502(1–2), 257–264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2005.07.294
(iv)Presidential Climate Action Project. (2010). Questions and Answers Emissions Reductions Needed to Stabilize Climate. https://www.climatecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/presidentialaction.pdf
(v)SageGlass. (2018, January 25). What is Electrochromic Glass? https://www.sageglass.com/en/article/what-electrochromic-glass#:%7E:text=The%20tint%20of%20electrochromic%20glass,voltage%20applied%20to%20the%20glass.&text=Removing%20voltage%2C%20and%20reversing%20its,return%20to%20its%20clear%20state.
(vi)Suntuitive. (2020). What Is Dynamic Glass. Suntuitiveglass.Com. https://suntuitiveglass.com/what-is-dynamic-glass/
(vii)The NYU Dispatch. (2018). Are we Heading towards a Technological Utopia [Photograph]. https://wp.nyu.edu/dispatch/2018/03/19/are-we-heading-towards-a-technological-utopia/
