Performance of Electrochromic Glazing: State of the Art Review

Globally, buildings are responsible for about 45% of energy consumption, 40% of atmospheric emission, 30% of water usage and 30% of waste generation, yielding negative environmental impacts which drove intensive research to achieve a sustainable built environment. Architects are primarily responsible and bear a major stake in the design of the built environment; being professionally mandated to achieve environmentally friendly, functional, structurally stable, and aesthetically pleasing designs. Adopting innovative solutions, which do not compromise these conventional, building requirements, is therefore crucial to promoting sustainability in the built environment. This investigation reviews electrochromic (EC) glazing as a sustainable design option for buildings: its types and properties are presented along with an added focus on design, energy and cost analysis aspects. The findings indicate that EC glazing can reduce electricity demand by 7-8% for moderate window size and 14-16% for large windows. Based on building type, 6 to 11% and 8 to 15% savings are possible for commercial building and residential buildings, respectively. Based on their performance and market success, alternative strategies, such as hybrid EC windows with PV cells, are presented. Further research areas are then deduced based on this review, which may provide design, energy and cost saving benefits.