Evaluation the effect of smart glasses on solar heat gain and cooling loads in office building in hot and humid climate of Bushehr

Today, application of advanced materials has made opportunities to reduce energy consumption of buildings and improve life’s quality. Smart glasses are among new materials designed to prevent energy loss through windows. Smart glasses could be categorized as Electrochromic glasses, liquid crystals, Gasochromics, Thermochromics and SPDs. In this article introducing various types of smart glasses, their characteristics and thermal performance had been compared. In order to evaluate the impact of smart glasses on energy consumption of building, a small office in Bushehr, Iran has been studied using Designbuilder simulation software. The results show advantages of using smart glass in reducing solar heat gain and cooling load of building. According to the results, SPD glass has the best performance reducing cooling load of building. Gasochromic, Electrochromic and Thermochromics glasses would also reduce the cooling load respectively. While the amount of solar heat gain varies in different months of the year, the average annual solar heat gain is the lowest using SPD glasses and Gasochromic, Thermochroic and Electrochromic glasses are in the next step. Application of SPD glass would result in 48.3% reduction in buildings cooling load compare to ordinary glass. The amount of reduction for Gasochromic, Electrochromic and Thermochromics glasses would be 45.8%, 34.1% and 17.23% respectively. So application of smart glasses in hot and humid climate of Bushehr can reduce solar heat gain and thus cooling load of buildings