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Solar Energy Materials for Advanced Window and Building-Envelope for Less Energy-Hungry Building

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 20953

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Aritra Ghosh

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Renewable Energy, Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
Interests: energy positive building; smart switchable material (electrochromic, suspended particle device, liquid crystal); advanced glazing technologies (vacuum, aerogel); first, second and third-generation pv for bipv/bapv; low concentrating pv (lsc, cpc, holography); building physics including materials science, solar radiation, thermal radiation, climate exposure, smart nanomaterials; solar powered electric vehicle (ev); transparent building envelops (transparent wood); sensor technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The decarbonisation of building energy sectors is essential in keeping the global mean temperature increase below 2 °C to meet the Paris Agreement targets. The building sector accounts for 40% of total energy consumption while emits one-third of the world's global greenhouse gases. Windows of a building are the weakest envelope by contributing 60% energy losses compared to other building envelopes. Traditional windows exhibit higher energy loss in cold climate and gain in a hot climate which in turn enhance the overall building energy. Windows also allow viewing through the interior to the exterior and maintain a connection between exterior worlds to the interior. Excessive entering daylight often creates glare issue while no daylight enhances the artificial lighting energy load. Hence, advanced window material is required which can trim down the building energy and provide sustainable building indoor environment to achieve less energy-hungry building.

Advanced material for energy-efficient window application includes, photovoltaic, water flow, air flow, smart switchable material (electrochromic, suspended particle device, liquid crystal, thermochromic, thermotropic, phase change material, gasochromic, photochromic), and low heat loss material (aerogel, multiple pane glass, low emission coated, vacuum). Switchable and PV material control the admitted solar heat and daylight while low heat loss material restricts the interior heat to pass to exterior.

Dust accumulation is currently an unavoidable fact which is hard to ignore. Deposited dust reduces the visibility of window whilst for BIPV system they reduce the incident light transmission which in turn reduce the power generation from PV. Transparent super hydrophobic and super hydrophilic can be the key solution for this issue.

The focus of this Special Issue will therefore be to critically analyze newly developed sustainable material for advanced window and energetic application of existing advanced material that have the ambition to lead to a sustainable built environment. This Special Issue focuses on

  • Development of new advanced material for advanced window
  • Investigation of energetic application of advanced window for retrofit and new building;
  • Development and application of Transparent /semitransparent BIPV (including first, second and third generation PV);
  • Building energy simulation (Energy Plus, Daysim, WINDOW, Therm) using available or newly developed advanced window.
  • Development and experiments with self-cleaning coating for PV and glazing application.

Original papers related to the above topics including material developments, methodologies, numerical and experimental investigations based on optical, thermal and electrical performance, case-studies addressing building retrofit are welcome.

Dr. Aritra Ghosh
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Electrochromic (EC), Suspended particle device (SPD), Polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC)
  • Double glazing, single glazing, water flow, air flow
  • Triple glazing, Aerogel , vacuum 
  • Phase change material, Thermochromic, Thermotropic, Gasochromic
  • Crystalline PV, a-Si, CdTe,CIGS, Organic, DSSC, Perovskite, Tandem
  • Anti-soiling/reflective
  • Concentrating PV ( LSC, CPC, Holographic)
  • BIM, BEMS 
  • BIPV, BIPVT (air, water, nanofluid)
  • Thermal, Optical (daylight/glare), electrical simulation
  • Thermal - Visual comfort

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 9395 KiB  
Article
The Use of Double-Skin Façades to Improve the Energy Consumption of High-Rise Office Buildings in a Mediterranean Climate (Csa)
by Atef Ahriz, Abdelhakim Mesloub, Leila Djeffal, Badr M. Alsolami, Aritra Ghosh and Mohamed Hssan Hassan Abdelhafez
Sustainability 2022, 14(10), 6004; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14106004 - 15 May 2022
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4482
Abstract
Engineers use double-skin façades (DSF) to lower the energy consumption of buildings as they can potentially control incoming wind speeds and the amount of solar heat gain. The purpose of this present study was to (1) evaluate the use of DSFs, (2) its [...] Read more.
Engineers use double-skin façades (DSF) to lower the energy consumption of buildings as they can potentially control incoming wind speeds and the amount of solar heat gain. The purpose of this present study was to (1) evaluate the use of DSFs, (2) its efficacy in improving the energy performance of high-rise office buildings in the hot, dry summer climate of the Mediterranean, and (3) to develop an optimum DSF model for this climate based on industry standards and recommendations for high-performance DSF parameters. In order to determine the efficiency of DSFs, two distinct variables, building orientation and the number of DSFs used, were taken into consideration. This study adopted an experimental (generate and test) research design and used Autodesk® Ecotect® Analysis software to develop computer simulations with which to assess 15 single façades, juxtaposed façades, three façades, and four façades on cardinal orientations. The recorded energy consumption and savings were then compared with that of the reference model. The results indicated that the three DSF model, i.e., the S14 model, reduced energy consumption during heating by 28% and by 53.5% when cooling a high-rise office building located in the hot, dry summer climate of the Mediterranean (Csa). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solar Energy Materials for Advanced Window and Building-Envelope for Less Energy-Hungry Building)
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22 pages, 7715 KiB  
Article
Development of a Mosque Design for a Hot, Dry Climate Based on a Holistic Bioclimatic Vision
by Atef Ahriz, Abdelhakim Mesloub, Khaled Elkhayat, Mohammed A Alghaseb, Mohamed Hassan Abdelhafez and Aritra Ghosh
Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6254; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116254 - 1 Jun 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4139
Abstract
Over 50% of the total energy consumed by buildings in a hot and dry climate goes toward the cooling regime during the harsh months. Non-residential buildings, especially houses of worship, need a tremendous amount of energy to create a comfortable environment for worshipers. [...] Read more.
Over 50% of the total energy consumed by buildings in a hot and dry climate goes toward the cooling regime during the harsh months. Non-residential buildings, especially houses of worship, need a tremendous amount of energy to create a comfortable environment for worshipers. Today, mosques are regarded as energy-hungry buildings, whereas in the past, they were designed according to sustainable vernacular architecture. This study was aimed at improving the energy performance of mosques in a hot and dry climate using bioclimatic principles and architectural elements. To achieve this aim, a process-based simulation approach was applied together with a generate and test technique on 86 scenarios based on 10 architectural elements, with various arithmetic transition rates organized in 9 successive steps. Starting from a simplified hypothetical model, the final model of the mosque design was arrived at based on a holistic bioclimatic vision using 10 architectural elements. The findings of this research were limited to a specific mosque size in a hot and dry climate, but the proposed holistic bioclimatic concept can be developed to take into account all mosque models in several harsh environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solar Energy Materials for Advanced Window and Building-Envelope for Less Energy-Hungry Building)
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17 pages, 30020 KiB  
Article
Performance Analysis of Photovoltaic Integrated Shading Devices (PVSDs) and Semi-Transparent Photovoltaic (STPV) Devices Retrofitted to a Prototype Office Building in a Hot Desert Climate
by Abdelhakim Mesloub, Aritra Ghosh, Mabrouk Touahmia, Ghazy Abdullah Albaqawy, Emad Noaime and Badr M. Alsolami
Sustainability 2020, 12(23), 10145; https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310145 - 4 Dec 2020
Cited by 47 | Viewed by 4324
Abstract
This paper presents the impact on energy performance and visual comfort of retrofitting photovoltaic integrated shading devices (PVSDs) to the façade of a prototype office building in a hot desert climate. EnergyPlus™ and the DIVA-for-Rhino© plug-ins were used to perform numerical simulations and [...] Read more.
This paper presents the impact on energy performance and visual comfort of retrofitting photovoltaic integrated shading devices (PVSDs) to the façade of a prototype office building in a hot desert climate. EnergyPlus™ and the DIVA-for-Rhino© plug-ins were used to perform numerical simulations and parametric analyses examining the energy performance and visual comfort of five configurations, namely: (1) inclined single panel PVSDs, (2) unfilled eggcrate PVSDs, (3) a louvre PVSD of ten slats tilted 30° outward, (4) a louvre PVSD of five slats tilted 30° outward, and (5) an STPV module with 20% transparency which were then compared to a reference office building (ROB) model. The field measurements of an off-grid system at various tilt angles provided an optimum tilt angle of 30°. A 30° tilt was then integrated into some of the PVSD designs. The results revealed that the integration of PVSDs significantly improved overall energy performance and reduced glare. The unfilled eggcrate PVSD did not only have the highest conversion efficiency at ȵ 20% but generated extra energy as well; an essential feature in the hot desert climate of Saudi Arabia. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solar Energy Materials for Advanced Window and Building-Envelope for Less Energy-Hungry Building)
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Review

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19 pages, 3501 KiB  
Review
Potential and Future Prospects of Geothermal Energy in Space Conditioning of Buildings: India and Worldwide Review
by Vivek Aggarwal, Chandan Swaroop Meena, Ashok Kumar, Tabish Alam, Anuj Kumar, Arijit Ghosh and Aritra Ghosh
Sustainability 2020, 12(20), 8428; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12208428 - 13 Oct 2020
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 6277
Abstract
This paper presents modern trends in geothermal energy utilization, mainly focusing on ground source heat (GSH) pumps for space conditioning in buildings. This paper focuses on India along with a general review of studies around the world. Space conditioning of a building contributes [...] Read more.
This paper presents modern trends in geothermal energy utilization, mainly focusing on ground source heat (GSH) pumps for space conditioning in buildings. This paper focuses on India along with a general review of studies around the world. Space conditioning of a building contributes to about 40–50% of the total energy consumed in buildings and has an adverse impact on the environment and human health. The India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) estimates that the demand for electricity for heating and cooling of buildings will increase by over 700% in India at current levels by 2047 with an additional 800 GW of power generation capacity needed just to meet heating and cooling needs by 2050, of which about 70% is required for the residential sector only. It further intensifies as the demand for peak electric load sharply increases in summer because of the extensive use of building air conditioning systems. Researchers across the globe have tried different cooling systems and found that some systems can offer a certain amount of energy-efficient performance, and also occupant comfort. Therefore, this article examines the geothermal potential in buildings for space conditioning by critically reviewing experimental and numerical studies along with the future prospects of GSH pumps. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solar Energy Materials for Advanced Window and Building-Envelope for Less Energy-Hungry Building)
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