Energy savings in hot and cool climate zones in project business

Ralf Greiner & Dirk Seidel, GUARDIAN Flachglas GmbH

The demand for more comfort, increased costs for any kind of fuels and finally political motivations (Rio, Kyoto and the actual UN climate report) with several energy saving regulations have accelerated the introduction of highly effective thermal insulation glass all over Europe.

In the meantime also in hot climates (e.g. Middle East) the knowledge becomes generally accepted that reflection of the short wave direct solar radiation during the day is only one side of the medal. High effective coatings with Low-E function are able to avoid the heat transfer (long wave radiation) from the warm environment to the
acclimatized building interior.

Since many of the architectural glass applications in cold climates and almost 100% in hot climates require tempered or heat strengthened glass, the performance of heat treatable glass in terms of thermal insulation is very limited.

In order to achieve a suitable energy and thermal heat reflection, special glass coatings are necessary. Glass with the best performance in terms of light, energy and heat control is usually equipped with highly effective magnetron sputtered coatings. The disadvantages are the limited possibilities regarding treatment and fabrication. Normally high performance coatings can be applied on already processed glass (heat treated, laminated, screen printed) only. On the other hand traditional hard coatings is very durable and can be heat-treated but doesn’t provide a comparable performance. Newest developments of special glass coatings show the way to combine the requirements on highest performance with the flexibility for further processing and almost unlimited applications.

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