Combating Climate Change By Driving Window Innovation

Environmental Business Review | Friday, August 11, 2023

To dramatically lower buildings' energy and carbon footprint globally, innovation in high-efficiency windows must be propelled to new heights.

Fremont, CA: From urban construction trends to aesthetic interest and the numerous advantages of indoor natural light, windows rule more wall space in buildings than ever. And this worldwide construction phenomenon isn't going away.

But this new equation has a glaring problem: most windows today are greatly inefficient, generating building energy consumption to skyrocket.

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Energy losses from windows contribute to almost one gigaton of CO2 emissions a year worldwide—approximately the same as the complete emissions from the aviation sector. This weak connection of inefficient windows augments our global energy utilization crisis with mounting climate significances.

To dramatically lower buildings' energy and carbon footprint globally, innovation in high-efficiency windows must be propelled to new heights. But to date, windows have been an immensely under-hyped climate technology.

The Massive Economic Opportunity of High-Efficiency Windows

For startups and VC investors, window technology innovation holds the breakthrough possibility for climate action and economic development.

The Market Opportunity

While windows have often been an integral part of a building's fabric, in recent years, these universal components have become increasingly important in building design, mainly with the rising trend of larger window-to-wall ratios in construction. In current commercial buildings, window-to-wall ratios are often as high as 75%.

Startups Revolutionary Window Technology Innovations

From dynamic glazing to next-gen vacuum insulation, startups, and innovators are progressing window technology on numerous promising fronts. Here are a few critical areas we are most interested in.

1. Dynamic glazing technologies: These technologies that strongly modulate solar control properties can be mainly effective in large commercial buildings with high window-to-wall ratios. These technologies can lower cooling energy use by over 20% compared to typical low-emissivity windows (based on building orientation, local climate, and other characteristics). Electrochromic, thermochromic, and photochromic technologies fall into this category. But, of these three, electrochromic windows are the furthest along in commercial deployment. Guaranteeing transparency, faster switching speeds, minimal complication of installation, and minimum costs will be key to the wider adoption of electrochromic window technology.

2. Aerogel glazing technologies: Aerogel materials give high insulation levels and more transparency, making them fit for window applications. These materials can potentially lessen building heating and cooling energy use by almost 25% (based on the thickness of the aerogel material, local climate, and so on). Thin aerogel films are designed to handle the retrofit market for large buildings, dramatically improve an existing window's insulation performance, and lower the emissions footprint. Players in this area are designing new manufacturing processes and raw materials that can greatly lessen the manufacturing cost of aerogels while ensuring superior transparency, negligible haze, and high insulation performance. Startups working on aerogel-based windows and films include Aeroshield, iFeather, and Spectral Materials.

3. Next-generation vacuum insulation: In another type of window technology, vacuum insulation is also witnessing rapid innovation, with startups moving toward new cost-effective, high-performance vacuum-insulated glass that is durable and less difficult to manufacture.

4. Low-e coatings: Tried-and-true low-emissivity (low-e) coatings define heat gain or loss through windows and are essential for window innovation. Startups are now devising alternative methods to making low-e coatings that enhance infrared heat reflection while coming in at a lower cost than conventional low-e coatings on the market today during winter.

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