InDeWaG

InDeWaG is the acronym of title "Industrial Development of Water Flow Glazing Systems" - Innovation action project funded under Horizon 2020, a Public Private Partnership on "BUILDINGS DESIGN FOR NEW HIGHLY ENERGY PERFORMING BUILDINGS". Support for innovation is provided to actions where partners focus together and join forces to remove existing barriers through market uptake measures in order to build capacity and provide support for sustainable energy policy implementation. Their mission is to foster sustainable energy investments and the uptake of technologies relevant to energy efficiency in buildings.

InDeWaG establish new technical knowledge and explore the concept of a new improved technology and product. Demonstration activity will show technical feasibility in a near to operational environment. InDeWag project introduce a new, disruptive building envelope system which has at least 15% building cost reduction potential and could be brought to industrial ripeness. The unique approach of InDeWaG is to enable maximum use of daylight by a transparent glass façade and at the same time meet nZEB performance. The consortium will undertake a quantitative analysis of different "modular" approaches: the active fluid flow glazing will combine water as heat transfer media with compressed air and solar-thermal energy conversion with BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic), to enable the optimal ZEB performance for a multitude of building types in different climates.

Ambition

The ambition of InDeWaG project is to bring to industrial ripeness a façade and interior wall system based on radiant heating and cooling glass surfaces made from water and/or air flow glazing, abbreviated as WFG and AFG, which harvests solar energy for various use at large scale. Such building elements will be made ready for commercial application in the building sector and will be designed to become easy adoptable for 21st century façade and overall building technology, especially for cost effective ZEB technology with increased daylight use, variable ventilation and individual control comfort. The benefits of fluid flow glazing façade technology were proven over the past 8 years on the level of few demonstrator projects, but there are still many difficulties for the right practical implementation.

The concept for extending the State of Art in water flow glass façade systems is oriented towards a system that will be able to satisfy the cooling requirements and the hot water needs for a whole building. This is achieved through the integration of a series of transparent, translucent or opaque solar thermal absorbers which operate at different nominal temperatures, namely 30ºC for heating and seasonal energy storage, 60ºC for sanitary hot water supply and 90ºC for cooling through absorption chillers. In this way, a complete glass curtain wall façade will be able to deliver all the levels of thermal energy required by a building while retaining its architectural aesthetics. In addition, implementation of radiant surfaces inside the building will be investigated by building simulation with IDA ICE and TRNSYS. The components will be tested in Demonstrators situated in two different climate zones - Bulgaria and Spain.

A proven design method, a tested and certified façade system unit, application possibilities and a focused market analysis are crucial for the fast market uptake of the Fluid Flow Glazing. The industrial development of this exciting façade technology is the main goal of InDeWaG consortium, enabling an important step forward towards achieving nZEB standard /stated by the 2020 EU policy in the Directive 31 from May 19th 2010/.

InDeWaG

OBJECTIVES / VISION

The main objective of InDeWaG is to develop an industrial technology for fabrication of cost affordable general-purpose Fluid Flow Glazing façade elements, which give maximum daylight utilization and maximum interior comfort at energy consumption level of nZEB. In addition, also interior radiant elements will be developed. This technical development is accompanied by the development of an open access software tool for design of buildings with this new type of façade and interior radiant cooling and heating elements.

The cost reduction of at least 15% is achieved by following the LowExergy9 principle and adjustment of the temperature difference between the exterior environment and the interior to a minimum value which is relevant for significant reduction of HVAC energy demand and lighting energy consumption.

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InDeWaG Vision

InDeWaG project tackles the cost reduction goal for construction of nearly zero energy buildings (NZEB) and provides energy efficient performance solution by using Water Flow Glazing (WFG) facades and Radiant Interior Walls. The distinguishing characteristic of a smart glazing is the reduction of both heating and cooling demand during the whole year by means of energy efficient elements. Design, evaluation and industrial manufacturing of WFG modules will be the final result of InDeWaG project.

WFG modules will lead to a significant improvement in the smart glazing facade market, introducing a new product that could readily adapt in response to changing climatic conditions or occupants preferences. The expected impact on costs is considered significant due to reduction of energy costs, heating and cooling demand.


OBJECTIVES

The first objective of the project is to understand the spectral and thermal behavior of an ideal transparent facade with optical properties, such as Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) and Visible Transmittance (VT) that could readily adapt in response to changing climatic conditions or occupant preferences.

Glazings are required to be energy efficient elements rather than mere transparent insulators. While in winter solar heat gains should be maximized, in summer they can produce overheating.

If the solar heat gain is not controlled dynamically, an advanced glazing can actually be detrimental in terms of overheating problems. The distinguishing characteristic of a smart glazing is the reduction of both heating and cooling demand during the whole year.

The second objective of the project is to design, evaluate, and manufacture prototype-industrialized modules. Industrial Development of Water Flow Glazing Systems (InDeWaG) tackles the cost reduction goal and ZEB performance by using Water Flow Glazing facades (WFG) and Radiant Interior Walls (RIW), while minimizing the size of HVAC systems and the total energy needs of the building. A distinguishing characteristic of water flow glazing is an active water chamber layer, which transports energy within the glazing. This solution is based on circulating water in a closed circuit allowing the solar heat gain from the outer environment to be controlled dynamically. In this case, the water flow does not influence the visual transmittance of the glazing but the temperature of the glass panes, which are in contact with the water.

Based on the project's progress we believe that WFG modules will lead to a significant improvement in the smart glazing facade market. A study of the socio-economic impact, which analyzed the achieved energy savings, is forthcoming. The WFG is already considered to be more economically viable than other facade solution, because it can save construction and installation costs and reduce energy demand.